


(R)evolution

by amcw177



Category: Kuroko no Basuke | Kuroko's Basketball
Genre: M/M, Minor Character Death, and Seirin, fairly vague depictions of violence and gore, guest appearances by Kirisaki Daiichi, non-human Kuroko, trigger warning for sickness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-12
Updated: 2014-06-12
Packaged: 2018-02-04 09:28:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 23,030
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1774186
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/amcw177/pseuds/amcw177
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Tōō is one of the most advanced ships in the galaxy, not least because of its latest addition to the crew: T.E.T.S.U.Y.A. - a genetically engineered A.I. incorporated into the ship itself. Regardless of his initial suspicion Aomine has formed quite an unusual friendship with their resident A.I. When the Tōō takes aboard cargo that comes with a military escort their partnership may come to a sudden and violent end. Days in space are long and dark - and they become infinitely longer the more things onboard want to kill you.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> For the past year the working title of this has been 'space opera'. I've despaired over it more times than I can count and have bugged the hell out of people with it. I'm done fiddling with it. 1000% done.
> 
> This was strongly inspired by a movie called ['Supernova'](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0134983/?ref_=nv_sr_1), which also features an A.I. that learns to think outside of its programming. There are two distinct scenes from the movie that I wanted to see an Aokuro version of so, if you've seen the movie you'll probably know which ones I mean. If you haven't, don't worry, it's not at all required to understand what's going on here. I have also seen Pitch Black and the Alien movies approximately 5,000 times so it's safe to say that it has served as some form of subconscious inspiration as well.
> 
> Many thanks go out to my brave and supportive beta readers: [andreaphobia](http://archiveofourown.org/users/andreaphobia/pseuds/andreaphobia), [thought-fullofpennies](http://thought-fullofpennies.tumblr.com/) (I'm sorry, I only have your Tumblr name), and [jarofclay](http://archiveofourown.org/users/jarofclay/pseuds/jarofclay). Remaining mistakes are mine and I fear there might be a few. I have a horrible tendency to switch between British and American spelling. If you see anything please feel free to point it out. 
> 
> ~~Please bear with me as I try to get all the chapters up in one go. I haven't posted any multichaps here in a long time so I'm a little rusty.~~ Done! :)

“See?” Aomine yells excitedly, and points at the archival footage of a basketball game that took place roughly 200 years before his time. “That was a foul! That was _so_ a foul!”

 _No, it was not,_ Tetsu replies, and rewinds the recording. _Number 6 did not, in fact, touch number 10’s hand. The referee was correct in not calling it._

Aomine squints at the enhanced slow-motion scene that Tetsu has helpfully provided him with. There can’t be more than half an inch between the players’ hands, but, of course, Tetsu has caught it. He is programmed to do so.

T.E.T.S.U.Y.A.: Transgressional Experimental Telecommunication System and UtilitY A.I. Or, as Aomine likes to call him: Tetsu. He is the most advanced artificial intelligence ever created. Aomine had once heard that the Shuutoku Foundation was working on something similar, but last time the Tōō had any dealings with them, it was still in beta.

Tetsu doesn’t just run the ship—he _is_ the ship. Momoi once tried to explain it to him. Tetsu’s core is biological; some sort of brain-like matter, apparently. Aomine tries not to picture Tetsu as a giant, slimy brain, but he doesn’t always succeed. Tetsu can receive information from all over the ship, which, in Aomine’s opinion, is fucking creepy. The ship itself is Tetsu’s eyes and ears. Countless bits and bytes are constantly streaming back and forth to deliver information to Tetsu’s core and create the impression of a personality.

Aomine was against it at first, because no way a fucking computer is telling him what to do (hell, most of the time he doesn’t even listen to his own captain), but in the end, he was overruled. It may have had a lot to do with getting into Akashi Enterprises’ good graces. Tetsu is their creation, and they move more cargo than any other corporation in the Teikō system. Jobs don’t exactly grow on trees.

The Tōō freelances for a number of conglomerates and companies, but the economy has taken a dip since the increase of pirate attacks on the trading routes. Fucking Kirisaki Daīchi—they destroy whatever they cannot steal. They descend upon cargo ships like hordes of greedy spiders. They tried that with the Tōō too, once, but Aomine is not the resident weapons expert for nothing. There is a highly effective exterminator for such pests, and it is called a ‘plasma cannon’. Aomine modified theirs, giving it a bit of an extra oomph. (He lovingly calls it ‘Big Mai’.)

All in all, the Tōō has the reputation of being very reliable. Akashi Enterprises has trusted them with numerous shipments already. This might be the reason why Aomine is now staring at Imayoshi’s passive-aggressive face instead of his precious basketball game.

“I called you five times on the intercom,” Imayoshi states.

“I know.” Aomine stuffs another handful of soy crackers into his mouth. “I’m shurprished you didn’t get the hint when I ignored you the fecond time.”

Imayoshi sighs. “Tetsuya, turn off the screen, please.”

The hologram disappears with a soft _’pfloff’_. Normally, it doesn’t make a sound, but Aomine once remarked that things disappearing without a sound is weird, and ever since then Tetsu has been delighting them with new sound effects every day. The other day, Aomine’s weapons display shut down with the scream of a dying cat. That was interesting.

“Hey!” Aomine jumps to his feet. “I was watching that!”

“You were watching a game that happened two hundred years ago. I doubt you’re missing out on anything.” Imayoshi tosses a little handheld device at Aomine. “Your expertise is required in the cargo hold.”

Aomine clicks through the cargo manifest. It’s not very informative. “This only says ‘27 crates’. Crates of _what_?”

“That, my esteemed colleague, is exactly the question I would like answered,” Imayoshi says with a smile, and shoves him out of the common area.

The cargo manifest doesn’t list contents, but it lists Akashi Enterprises as their client, which is strange because they are usually annoyingly anal about paperwork. Now, Imayoshi may be a greedy asshole, but he’s not stupid enough to let unchecked cargo onto their ship. And if the client refuses to provide them with a proper list of contents, they are going to have to get one themselves.

“Are we transporting weapons again?” Aomine grumbles.

Imayoshi gives him a sideways glance as they walk down the corridor towards the cargo hold, “Since when are you so averse to weapons? I thought we employed you as a weapons expert.”

“I’m not _averse_ to them,” Aomine says, mimicking Imayoshi’s tone. “I just don’t like handing them to other people.”

“I see.” Imayoshi nods. “I do admit the elephant hybrids we picked up from Yōsen last month were a lot more fun.”

“We agreed never to talk about that.”

“Oops. Forgive me.” Imayoshi sneers. 

_Captain, we are ready for launch,_ Tetsu informs them. It’s still a bit eerie how his voice is both inside and outside of Aomine’s head.

“Very good. Thank you, Tetsuya,” Imayoshi replies. “Just a moment.”

_I should warn you that there are two rather grim-looking soldiers standing guard in front of the cargo hold._

Imayoshi stops for a second, frowning. “How do you know they are ‘grim-looking’?”

A holographic screen appears before them. It streams a live feed and features two soldiers in complete tactical gear, looking very grim indeed. 

Aomine could not be prouder. “I taught him that. We’ve been doing facial expressions training.”

“And he’s using you for reference?”

Aomine nods.

“God help us all.”

\---

Ten minutes of arguing gets them nowhere so they resort to the ‘distraction and infiltration’ strategy: Imayoshi makes a gigantic fuss while Aomine slips by behind the soldiers and into the cargo bay.

“Fucking dark in here,” Aomine mumbles, and barely evades intimate contact with the corner of a crate. Tetsu takes the hint and switches on the lights.

“Thanks,” Aomine says, without thinking. He strolls through the rows of crates and picks one at random. He gives the biometric lock a contemplative tap. The crates look pretty solid—probably some titanium alloy. It will take ages to cut through that. Besides, damaging the cargo will only result in a smaller paycheck.

“Tetsu? A little help here?”

_I have been instructed not to tamper with any locks, Aomine-kun._

Aomine knocks his fist against the crate. “Then how am I supposed to check the contents? What if there’s some super potent nerve gas in there that will kill us all in our sleep, huh?”

_My scanners show no traces of harmful gas or liquid inside the containers._

Aomine rolls his eyes. “Okay, what about firearms? Those things could go off.” 

_I detect no explosive materials. However, my scanners indicate... life._

Tetsu sounds hesitant, which kicks off all the alarm bells in Aomine’s head. “What, you mean, like _people_?”

 _No,_ Tetsu’s voice takes on a bewildered tone. _It is too faint for a human._

“So, what, are we transporting twenty-seven crates of kittens?”

_Unlikely. I detect no heartbeat._

Aomine takes a step backwards, regarding the crate with newfound suspicion. “But how can anything be alive without a heartbeat?”

 _I’m alive,_ Tetsu says.

It’s moments like these that Aomine becomes painfully aware that he has befriended a machine that is not only pretending to be human, but actually _believes_ that it is. Somewhere in Tetsu’s world of bits and bytes, he is just an enormously helpful person. Most of the time, Aomine forgets, too.

He sighs. “Yes, I know. I didn’t meant like—you know what? Forget it. Let’s just have a look.”

 _Aomine-kun, I don’t think that’s a good idea,_ Tetsu warns. But Aomine is already going for the crow bar, swinging it over his shoulder.

“What?” Aomine grins as he hooks it under the edge of the lid. “We tried your way. Now we’ll try mine.” He leans into it with all his might until the hinges creak. The crate doesn’t budge, though. This may require more strength than Aomine can muster. “Tetsu, your turn.” He lets go of the crow bar and massages some feeling back into his hands.

_I’m sorry, Aomine-kun. I can’t help you._

“Fine.” Aomine makes a miffed face, and heads over to the control panel for the mechanical arm installed in the ceiling. “Manual override. Aomine Daiki, pass code eleven-alpha-three-one. Confirm.”

Tetsu remains stubbornly quiet for a moment but eventually has to give in. _Confirmed. Manual override enabled. You are cheating, Aomine-kun._

“I’m not cheating,” Aomine insists and steers the arm over the lid. “I’m just using everything at my disposal.”

_The captain will not like this. This is the fifty-seventh time you have taken action despite my recommendation to the contrary._

Aomine smirks when the lid begins to crack under the pressure of his mechanical helper. He shrugs. “The captain sent me down here, remember? I’m doing exactly what I’ve been ordered to do. You should mark this day in your calendar.”

 _Noted,_ Tetsu says, and as if on cue, the lid springs open with a loud bang. Pieces of the lock fly in all directions, and if that noise doesn’t tip off the soldiers outside, the alarm that goes off almost simultaneously certainly will.

Aomine shields his eyes against the blinding alarm signals. “You could have told me that they were hooked into our alarm system!”

_I did tell you it was a bad idea._

“Yeah, yeah,” Aomine snorts. He leans over the crate to examine its contents, frowning. There is nothing but water in there. Maybe water after an oil spill, but it’s definitely liquid. Aomine reaches out to touch it, when something moves under the surface. “What the everloving fuck—” He jumps backwards, and tumbles right into one of the soldiers. They haul him away from the container before he can fully comprehend what he just saw. 

“Hands on your head!” The two soldiers yell in unison, pointing their pulsar rifles at him. Aomine is a bit irritated, because they should not have those. The only guns allowed on the Tōō are either stunners or anything that Aomine can operate (everything). But that’s the military for you.

One of the soldiers hurries to put the lid back onto the crate while the other threatens to slice Aomine in half. That’s the thing with pulsar type weapons—they are to human bodies what a hot knife is to butter. But even without the guns, Aomine would have been frozen to the spot. He barely manages to scrape enough sense together to follow the soldiers’ orders.

Imayoshi bustles in, along with a second set of grumpy soldiers, one of which is wearing a colonel’s badge. Obviously, he’s the man in charge. And he immediately zeroes in on Aomine. 

“What were you doing in here? This area is restricted.”

“Restricted?” Aomine snorts. His shock is slowly transforming into anger. “You’re guests on this ship. You can’t fucking restrict _anything_.”

“Aomine,” Imayoshi warns. But Aomine is on a roll now.

“What the fucking hell did you bring on our ship?” Aomine points at the crate that the soldiers are working frantically on closing back up.

“That is none of your concern,” the colonel says, stoically. 

Aomine laughs, cold and dangerous, “How about I show you some of my concern?”

But Imayoshi grabs his arm before he can hit the colonel in the face. He drags Aomine out of the cargo bay, smiling at the assembled military force all the while. 

“He was just making sure the alarm systems were fully functional,” Imayoshi says, as he bows out, Aomine in tow. “Well, they are. We are ready for takeoff now, gentlemen. So, if you would be so kind as to vacate the cargo bay?”

The soldiers reluctantly leave the cargo area, but this time, the colonel orders _four_ guys to stay behind.

“Oh my.” Imayoshi lets out a deep breath as they watch the rest of the soldiers retreat to their quarters. “This is going to be a troublesome journey, isn’t it?”

“Troublesome? Try _fucking insane_ ,” Aomine huffs. “Have you _seen_ what’s in those crates?”

Imayoshi shoves him in the direction of the flight deck. “No. And thanks to your stunt, I won’t get to.”

“You should be grateful,” Aomine grumbles. “That was fucking _freaky_.”

“You can tell me all about it once we’re out of here. We can deal with a dozen soldiers if need be. What we can’t deal with is the fifty battalions of backup outside.”

\---

In theory, they should all have been in cryo sleep by now, and well on their way to Rakuzan. But instead, Aomine is sitting in Imayoshi’s quarters, awkwardly trying to explain what he saw in that crate.

“It was like water but less... wet.” Aomine waves his hands vaguely. “And there was something in it. I saw it move. I swear that thing was alive. Tetsu, tell him.”

Imayoshi frowns at him over the rim of his glasses. His perpetual smile is gone. “Alright. Tetsuya? Show me the data from the cargo bay.”

_I’m sorry, captain. I have no data on file._

“What?” They say in unison.

“How can you not have anything on file?” Aomine jumps up. “You did a full scan of the crate before I opened it. You _told me_ it was alive.”

 _I’m sorry._ Tetsu replies. If Aomine didn’t know better, he would have said that Tetsu sounded almost distraught. _I seem to have... forgotten._

Aomine exchanges a glance with Imayoshi, who shakes his head in concern. Tetsu records every single blip that happens on this ship, every peep that is spoken, and Aomine is convinced he can read minds, too. Momoi once said that Tetsu’s core was much like a human brain, only without all the pesky human side effects, like fucking _memory loss_.

“What do you mean ‘you’ve forgotten’?” Aomine asks, cautiously.

_I don’t know. This has never happened before._

Aomine turns to Imayoshi. “Great. Somebody gave Tetsu _amnesia_.”

Imayoshi seems to be a lot calmer about the whole issue, yet no less worried. “This is why I hate having military on board,” he says with a sigh, and gets up from the small desk he’s been leaning on.

Aomine follows him outside. “So, why’d you let them?”

“It was a package deal.” Imayoshi closes the door behind them and heads off towards the lower decks. “It was either that or watching you turn Tetsuya into a basketball nerd over the next two months.”

“Hey! Tetsu likes basketball!” Aomine objects. “Ain’t that right?”

_Yes. One day I would like to play one-on-one with Aomine-kun, too._

Imayoshi merely gives him a strange, contemplative look and walks away.

“Hey! Hey, where are you going?”

“To see Momoi. If anyone has any idea what’s going on, it’ll be her.”

\---

Aomine has known Momoi for as long as he can think. Possibly even before that. They used to be attached at the hip when they were kids. Aomine didn't mean to break that bond but the restlessness inside of him drove him to join the Teikō Exploration Squad the moment he turned sixteen. It wasn't that he was all that interested in exploring, but staying in one place for too long set his teeth on edge. And the Squad seemed like a good excuse to be away from Earth for months at a time. Momoi used to send him messages that he received after delays of several days, babbling about her studies and how he was missed. He never replied, but she kept doing it. It was a little bit like watching those vintage washing machine screen savers. It was calming but nobody really expected any interaction from him.

When Aomine's insubordinations began to outweigh his commendations (he held the record for both) they had no choice but to give him the boot. Not that Aomine cared all that much. He found work on the Tōō, whose captain seemed to care little about Aomine's attitude as long as he got the job done. It was perfect. And then Akashi Enterprises urged them to take Tetsu aboard and with him came Momoi. She had scored a prestigious job as genetic engineer at Akashi Enterprises and had been heavily involved in Tetsu's creation. She has since developed some kind of weird, one-sided affection for Tetsu. Aomine thinks she’s even worse than he is. He has seen the renderings of humanoid Tetsu that she keeps hidden in her underwear drawer, and some of them are pretty juicy.

Her strange infatuation notwithstanding, it was the logical choice to have her join the crew. She works out any kink s in the programming that might arise, and takes care of Tetsu’s core. She is also the only one who has access to Tetsu’s innermost workings. Although, Aomine isn’t sure what exactly she does in there. Maybe she needs to sprinkle Tetsu’s brain with water every once in a while, so that it doesn’t shrivel up. Chances are, Aomine’s never going to know.

They are currently in the observation room, watching Momoi pick and pluck at innumerable rows of genetic code, floating around her, with the ease of a ballet dancer. This is as far as any of them are allowed to go. Beyond the heavy airlock lies Tetsu’s brain. Aomine often wonders what it looks like. For all he knows it could be made of sentient moss. He’ll never find out.

“This is strange,” Momoi ponders aloud.

“What is?” Aomine asks, brow furrowing in concern. 

“The data is there.” She waves a translucent screen into existence, highlighting a seemingly random area of multi colored splotches. It looks like a brain scan that was invaded by ants. “It’s just... cut off. Tetsu-kun can’t get to it. It’s like... when you puncture a specific nerve.” She pokes Aomine in the arm.

“Ow!” Aomine rubs the sore spot. “What’d you do that for?”

She points at his head. “Your nerves told your brain that it's supposed to hurt. Now, if I pressed down hard enough, that information wouldn't go through and your arm would simply go numb. You wouldn't feel a thing. That's basically what happened with Tetsu-kun. Somebody found a way to cut off all the data streams that relate to the area.”

“ _Somebody_?” Imayoshi echoes.

“It certainly wasn't me,” Momoi says, fondling a string of code that entwines around her arm like a luminescent snake. “I would never do something like that. It _hurts_ Tetsu-kun.”

“Of course not,” Imayoshi agrees. They all know Momoi would go berserk on whoever did this. Aomine cannot wait to find out, too. His money is on that colonel character, who is apparently in great need of a fist to his face. Doing weird stuff to Tetsu is a surefire way to make a lot of enemies on this ship.

“We can't delay our journey any longer,” Imayoshi muses. Worry has driven the smile from his face. Everyone knows Akashi Enterprises doesn't take kindly to delays. “We’ll take turns keeping watch.”

“Fuck,” Aomine grumbles as they leave Momoi's coding cave. The Tōō is fast but it still takes several months to make it to Rakuzan. Keeping watch means staying awake for multiple weeks on your own, with nothing to do. Aomine has nothing against being alone but he is also really bad at keeping himself occupied—a dilemma that has driven many a superior to insanity.

Imayoshi is a lot less fazed by Aomine's whining. He makes the crew draw straws to determine who gets first watch. It’s Wakamatsu, with Aomine going second. Great, that means he’s going to have to listen to Wakamatsu's log first thing upon waking up. He’ll be deaf for the rest of the week.

 _Good night, Aomine-kun._ Tetsu says quietly, when Aomine crawls into his cryo chamber.

Aomine smiles. “Good night, Tetsu. See you on the flipside.” The chamber lock clicks shut and moments later Aomine's bodily functions are reduced to a minimum, and he falls into the deepest sleep mankind has invented yet.


	2. Chapter 2

Waking up from cryo sleep is a little bit like attempting to walk over quicksand. Your movements are all jerky, your balance is off, and you constantly feel like you are sinking into the floor. Everything is heavy, even the air weighs you down. Aomine knows Tetsu is trying to make it easier for him by going slow, and indulging his murmurs of _‘Five more minutes’_. But eventually, he will have to get up.

The lock springs open and the door slides aside. Aomine mumbles something unintelligible, and scrambles out of his cryo pod. The floor is always warm, but the air is cool and fresh, like it has just been flown in from a mountain top. When Aomine first started working in space, the air circulation systems were crap. They probably still are, but Tetsu is at least 15% magic, and that turns ‘stale and stuffy’ into ‘fresh ocean breeze’.

_Good morning, Aomine-kun._

“Mornin’.” Aomine stretches until his joints give a satisfactory pop. “How are we doing?”

_We are on course, no mentionable incidents. All systems are fully operational._

Aomine rolls his shoulders, hopping up and down to get some sense of gravity back into his muscles. “Great.” he grimaces. “I can see this is going to be an exciting three weeks.”

Tetsu remains quiet. Sometimes, Aomine isn’t sure if Tetsu grasps the concept of sarcasm. Other times, Tetsu gives him proverbial whiplash with his sassy replies.

“How about some music?” Aomine says, pulling a fresh shirt over his head. The mechanical clicking sound of those old jukeboxes fills the room, before something with a heavy bass and gratuitous electronic beats swells up. Aomine grins as he strides out of his room. He is still in his socks. The floors are shiny and smooth. Boots in hand, nobody can stop him from skidding all the way to the flight deck.

\---

“EY, LISTEN HERE, SHITHEAD, WE WERE RUNNING A LITTLE BEHIND OUR SCHEDULE SO I ADJUSTED THE THRUSTERS AND—”

“Mute,” Aomine hisses, rubbing his temples. The flight deck goes quiet, with the video log silently flickering on. Wakamatsu only has two modes: annoying, and asleep. It’s mandatory, if they take turns, to watch the previous logs, but nobody said he had to _listen_ to them as well. Besides, if there had been anything alarming, Tetsu would have told him.

So, Aomine lets the video feed play on without paying much attention, and spins around in the captain’s chair. “Well, this sucks,” he ascertains after a while.

_Do you want to play a game?_

Aomine slumps even lower, like a half-done pancake. “I’m not playing chess with you again.”

 _Why not?_ Tetsu sounds confused.

“Because you always win,” Aomine whines. Tetsu offered to teach him chess once, but the only thing you learn when you play against Tetsu is how to deal with frustration. Maybe that is the point of the game, Aomine will never know.

 _I see,_ Tetsu says and unfolds a sheer endless list of games in mid-air. _I know other games as well._

Aomine eyes the list, but almost everything on there is either strategic or boring, or both. “You know what?” He decides and gets up. “How about I teach you something, for a change? Come on.”

He knows he doesn't have to tell Tetsu to follow him—because Tetsu is already there anyway, no matter where Aomine goes—but it would feel wrong not to. Tetsu was designed as a living being, so that is how Aomine treats him. Technically, he is only following the manual.

He shambles down the corridors until he reaches the holodeck. It doesn't look like much when it’s not in use. To the naked eye it’s just a square, white room, but when Tetsu fires up the sensors it becomes a second layer to reality. Aomine never cared to ask how exactly Tetsu manages to create surroundings that can interact so seamlessly with a person that it might as well be real. He fears an hour-long lecture from Momoi on the basic workings of up-to-date sensor techniques. He prefers to just let Tetsu work his magic and leave it at that.

“Alright,” Aomine announces, and pulls on the gloves. They are less for Tetsu, than to provide Aomine with a sense of weight and texture. “Some ambience, please.”

Like a time lapse, Tetsu builds the replica of a 20th century street basketball court, complete with obscene graffiti on the walls. “Very nice,” Aomine commends with a grin. “So, where’s my opponent?”

_“I am here.”_

Aomine spins around. His jaw drops.

 _“Is there something wrong, Aomine-kun?”_ The young man asks, giving himself a concerned once-over. He’s a bit transparent if you change angles too fast, but otherwise it’s a pretty nice rendering of a human being.

“Ah.” Aomine realizes he’s staring. “No, no. It’s just... I’ve never actually seen you before.”

Tetsu tugs at his clothes. _“You don’t like it?”_ His eyes are bright blue, almost the same color as his hair. He seems discouraged when he looks up at Aomine.

“No, no, that’s not it.” Aomine laughs nervously. “You’re just... you’re kinda small?” He isn’t even joking. Tetsu barely reaches Aomine’s shoulders. Considering that Tetsu has the entire range of human form to pick from, that seems like an odd choice for a one-on-one.

Tetsu studies his hands, as if he’s seeing them for the first time. Well, he probably is. Aomine doubts that anyone has ever asked Tetsu to materialize himself. _“I didn’t feel tall,”_ Tetsu admits.

Aomine blinks. “Well, uh, a small build can be an advantage. I guess.”

Tetsu gives him a doubtful look, before averting his eyes. _”You’re right. Maybe I should change.”_

“No, no! Wait!” Aomine tries to hold on to Tetsu, completely forgetting that, despite everything, Tetsu is still just a very elaborate hologram. He staggers, but successfully keeps Tetsu from vanishing. “You’re fine,” Aomine assures him, smiling. “You’re fine.”

The corners of Tetsu’s lips quirk upward, like he is trying out a smile but isn’t quite sure of the mechanics yet. Either way, this has got to be the first time a machine is smiling at a person because _it wants to_. This is one for the history books, Aomine reckons.

“Let’s get started, shall we?” Aomine grins broadly. He holds out his hand, palm up. “Ball, please.” A basketball appears out of nowhere. He can feel the weight, and the dips in balance when he moves his hand. Sure, it’s just the gloves tricking his nerves into sending false signals to his brain, but if he doesn’t think too much about it, this is as close to the real thing as it gets. He rolls the ball between his hands, smirking. “Ready?”

Tetsu goes into a picture-perfect defense stance under the hoop and nods. He’s got the basics down, now all Aomine needs to teach him is to forget about it and just _feel it_.

\---

They play for hours. It feels like barely twenty minutes. By the time they call it a day, Aomine’s stomach is grumbling like an angry bear. They skipped lunch. It must be about dinner time now.

“Hah.” Aomine flops down on the floor, taking a generous swig from his water bottle. He grins from ear to ear, even though he feels like his lungs might explode. “That was fun!”

Tetsu sits down next to him. His smile doesn’t look like bad animation work anymore.

“That’s really not fair. You’re not even out of breath,” Aomine complains, dumping the rest of the water over his head.

Tetsu gives him a perplexed look. Aomine means to slap his thigh in good fun, before he remembers that Tetsu isn’t real. It makes his chest go tight for a moment. He has never thought about what it would be like if Tetsu were made of flesh and blood. Now he can’t get it out of his head.

Aomine sighs. That joke didn’t exactly take. “Don’t worry, I know you don’t have lungs. It was a joke.”

 _“Ah,”_ Tetsu says flatly. He pulls his legs up, and rests his chin on his knees. He does indeed look small like that, more like a child than a... a what? A machine, that’s what. The times that Aomine forgets that he is essentially talking to a bunch of wires are getting more frequent. Especially now, that Tetsu has an actual _face_. It’s a nice face, too.

Aomine smiles, resisting the urge to ruffle Tetsu’s hair. “You know, I like the form you chose.”

Tetsu looks up, flickering a little.

“It suits you somehow,” Aomine adds.

The visual hiccups get stronger, to the point where Aomine fears he may have to check on Tetsu’s circuits to ensure he hasn’t fried anything, but then Tetsu smiles. Aomine has seen a bunch of impressive things on his travels. He once saw a red giant. He’s seen the diamond fields of Rakuzan. But he has never seen a machine smile, not like this. They are not supposed to _radiate_ happiness.

Aomine’s stomach rumbles, which probably saves him from doing something stupid. “Ah... uhm.” Aomine gives Tetsu a lopsided grin. “I should probably get something to eat.” He gets up, and discards the gloves in the box by the door. When he turns around Tetsu is standing in the middle of the blank room, looking like a cartoonist’s last surviving character after a fit with an eraser.

“Nice game, by the way,” Aomine says, just to fill the silence. “We should do this again, some time.”

 _”With pleasure.”_ Tetsu smiles and bows, disappearing in a flurry of colorful pixels.

\---

They play again the next day. And the day after that. Aomine surfs through the corridors on the gurney from the infirmary. He paints a giant dick on the back of Wakamatsu’s jacket with UV-markers. He checks all the weapons on board twice a day. Everything, to keep from bashing his head against the wall out of sheer boredom.

It’s his seventh day on watch duty when Tetsu wakes him up in the middle of the night—or what passes for night in outer space.

“Frmblwuh?” Aomine mumbles before he gets his tongue under control.

 _Sorry for waking you, Aomine-kun,_ Tetsu says. _I am registering activity in the guest quarters. One of the cryo pods has been opened._

“What?” Aomine rubs his eyes, and trudges across the room to get his jacket and boots. He doesn’t even bother changing out of his pajama bottoms. He can tell a damned soldier to get his ass back into the cryo chamber in whatever gear he chooses, and he chooses to not give a fuck.

“Why can’t these bozos stay put for five fucking minutes?” He grumbles as he grabs the small stunner he keeps under his pillow. He used to keep a knife there but when Imayoshi almost lost a finger trying to wake him up, it became a general rule to restrict Aomine’s access to sharp objects. The stunner only puts you out for about five minutes, but sometimes five minutes is all Aomine needs.

There aren’t a lot of reasons why you would end cryo sleep prematurely. Tetsu wouldn’t, unless it was some sort of medical emergency, and a user is barely aware enough to do anything at all. Aomine has heard reports of users having nightmares so vivid that they actually started fighting the cryo system until they fell out of their pods - unprepared, shaking, and, in most cases, batshit crazy. If this is one of those cases, Aomine prefers to be armed with something that can at least incapacitate a man long enough to drag their sorry ass to the infirmary.

Aomine stomps down the corridor towards the passenger cabins. The Tōō is not a cruise ship, so the guest quarters are tiny, mostly four to five cryo pods crammed into a space designed for three. Each pod comes with a small locker, but that’s about it. The rest of your luggage, should you have any, either goes into the cargo hold or out the airlock—depending on Imayoshi’s mood.

So, when Aomine enters the room there is not a lot to distract him from the open cryo chamber. It’s still oozing cooling liquid, creating a thin fog around Aomine’s ankles.

“Where is he?” Aomine asks, pointing the stunner at any corners that might be big enough to hide a human. He even checks the ceiling, for fuck’s sake.

 _I cannot pinpoint his exact location._ Tetsu sounds perplexed.

Aomine frowns. “What do you mean? Either he’s here or he’s not. Which is it?”

_I don’t know. He is... everywhere._

Aomine’s mind immediately jumps to the worst possible conclusion. He raises his feet to check the soles of his boots. He hasn’t heard of anyone exploding upon exiting a cryo pod, but there’s a first for everything.

 _Not like that, Aomine-kun,_ Tetsu says, almost reprimanding. _He is too fast for me to track._

“What?” Aomine yelps. Tetsu can tell you what you’ll be thinking in five seconds. _Nothing_ is too fast for Tetsu.

Aomine takes another look around, but there is no sign of the guy. Aomine sighs, and steps up to the cryo pod. He rummages through the missing soldier’s locker. It’s been ripped open (Imayoshi is going to be very _sarcastic_ about this), so Aomine doesn’t feel particularly bad about it. He squints at the name tag on the breast pocket: _’1st Lt Haizaki Shōgo’_.

“Is that the one with the cornrows?” Aomine wonders aloud. The military has been a lot more lenient as of late when it comes to hairstyles. They are struggling to keep afloat in the ever-growing competition between planetary conglomerates and private armies so, they take whoever is stupid enough to join. As long as you leave a gap for your eyes, everything seems to be fine.

Tetsu helpfully provides him with Haizaki’s personnel file, sporting an unflattering picture that has got to be a few years old by now. “Wow,” Aomine snorts. “They really do take everyone, these days.” He waves his hand and the file folds itself neatly into nothingness. “Okay.” He eyes the other three cryo pods. They seem undisturbed. “Now, where the hell is this asshole?”

 _I think he is—_ Tetsu never gets to finish. Someone jumps Aomine from behind, _hissing_ into his ear. Aomine topples over, barely avoiding kissing the floor with his face. He cries out when something sharp tears into his shoulder (that’ll teach him to leave his room in nothing but his pajamas). He struggles onto his back and aims the stunner at whatever attacked him. There is nothing there.

“What the fucking hell was that?” Aomine pants. He scrambles up from the floor, and starts frantically searching the room. His shoulder aches, like somebody is pouring hot lead over it, but he tries to ignore it in favor of finding his attacker.

He sprints out onto the corridor. “Which way did he go, Tetsu?”

_Where did who go?_

Aomine grunts in frustration. “Haizaki! The guy from the cryo pod! You have his DNA on file!”

_I do. But that is not Haizaki Shōgo._

Aomine stops mid-step. “What?” He is forced to say this a lot today. “But you were tracking... okay, _trying_ to track him before.”

_I was tracking **someone**. I never said it was First Lieutenant Haizaki._

“Okay, fine.” Aomine throws his hands up. He doesn’t have time for this. “So, where is he?”

It takes Tetsu a millisecond too long to answer. _First Lieutenant Haizaki is no longer on board._

Aomine’s mouth forms the word _‘What’_ but he refrains from repeating himself. He temporarily forgets what he was meant to do, and merely stares at empty space. “How can he not be on the ship, Tetsu? He was on board when we took off.”

 _He was,_ Tetsu agrees. _But I am unable to locate him now._

“But then—” he gestures wildly before his eyes go wide. “Did that thing _eat him_?”

Tetsu does the computerized equivalent of a shoulder shrug by remaining quiet.

“Alright.” Aomine runs his hand through his hair, sighing. “Can you at least locate that—that other thing?” It can’t be a person, judging by the scratches on Aomine’s shoulder. A man with nails like that would have a serious problem every time he needs to pee. Might be a werewolf. Although, Aomine has no idea how you would sense the full moon out here. They’ve passed _seven moons_ so far. No wonder this thing is so pissed.

 _He is too fast._ Now that Aomine has a visual to go with the voice he can clearly picture Tetsu shaking his head. _He might be coming towards you, though._

“He _might_?” Aomine scoffs. “I don’t like the sound of tha—” Something heavy and angry pummels into him from the left. The stunner slips from Aomine’s hands. He wouldn’t have hit anything either way. By the time Aomine realizes he is lying on the floor, the thing is already skidding around the corner and out of sight. However, the tail doesn’t escape Aomine’s attention.

He’ll have to make up a nickname for it, otherwise he’ll spend his entire time thinking of it as the ‘werewolf-lizard-tail-guy-thingy’ and that takes far too long to process. Aomine struggles back onto his feet as fast as he can and chases after the creature.

He misses it by a hair’s breadth in front of the engine room. That thing really is everywhere. Tetsu wasn’t exaggerating. It crawls along the ceiling, swings from side to side, barely even touches the floor. By the time it hightails into the Fishing Room, Aomine is out of breath and his stunner is running on empty.

“Seal the room, Tetsu!” he yells when he sees the tail disappear through the door. Tetsu reacts immediately, shutting the hatch good and tight. The little light next to the control panel switches to red.

“Holy shit!” Aomine leans against the door, catching his breath. He twists around to peer through the porthole in the door. The Fishing Room is where they store outdated equipment, discarded machinery of all kinds, useless birthday presents, and whatever else may come in handy some day—hence: _Fishing Room_. You never know what you might find. It’s basically a glorified broom cupboard. And there is only one way in and out.

Aomine squints at the darkness behind the door. For a moment, he fears that thing may have escaped before Tetsu was able to close the door. But then something bumps against the glass panel with an ear piercing screech. “Whoa!” Aomine flinches away from the door, his heart beating like it is trying to win a bongo competition. “What the fuck is that?”

It disappears (obviously disgruntled that the door didn’t give) before Aomine can get a better look. He did catch a glimpse of some freakishly long and pointy fangs, though.

“Tetsu?” Aomine eyes the door, and then the small stunner in his hands.

_Yes, Aomine-kun?_

“I think it’s time we wake the captain.”


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warning: blood and gore. Nothing too graphic though. I hope.

Imayoshi doesn’t yell. Aomine has never heard him raise his voice, even though he is pretty sure that he’s given Imayoshi plenty of reason to. Imayoshi does something a lot scarier: he smiles. It’s the kind of smile that doesn’t actually fool anyone but makes it impossible to guess what he’s really thinking. It’s a smile like quicksand, and it’s currently directed at colonel Nijimura.

Once Imayoshi had glared sufficiently at Aomine and his outrageous story, they had gone and woken Nijimura. They figured he might like to know that one of his guys has been eaten by a werewolf-space-lizard-shark. Aomine has decided to call it ‘Bob’ until further notice.

“Considering the circumstances,” Imayoshi says, voice deceptively sweet. “I suggest we forego any confidentiality agreements and you tell us what we are transporting. And why it is eating people.”

Nijimura purses his lips in defiance.

Imayoshi pushes his glasses back up his nose, sighing. “Perhaps I wasn’t clear enough, colonel. _Your cargo_ is attacking _my crew_. It seems you have already lost one man. Do you really want to risk losing more? Because I’m about to grant Aomine access to very large weapons.”

Aomine grins excitedly. He hasn’t had a chance to test the new Nuclide 3 plasma rifle he conned off a guy on Kaijō. It’s on the no-trade list on three worlds, which may be why Imayoshi was less than thrilled to add it to their arsenal. 

Nijimura merely observes Aomine with a vaguely disgusted look, and goes straight back to shaking his head no. “I can’t tell you,” he insists.

“Fine,” Imayoshi says with a smile and turns to Aomine. “Wake the others, get whatever weapons you can carry, and catch thi—”

“I mean,” Nijimura interrupts. “I can’t tell you, because I don’t know.”

Aomine raises his eyebrows. “What, you don’t know what you’ve been sent to protect?”

Nijimura looks like he stepped on a nail. “Not exactly, no.”

“Explain, please?” Imayoshi sits down on the small desk in Nijimura’s quarters.

Nijimura takes a deep breath. “We were dispatched to pick up twenty-seven crates from a research facility on an asteroid near Seihō. They never told us what was in there, and it’s not my place to ask.”

“But...?” Imayoshi provides.

Nijimura’s expression darkens. “But when we got there, we couldn’t find anyone. The entire facility was empty.”

“And that didn’t tip you off?” Aomine snorts.

Nijimura sends him a pointed glare. “We radioed in, and they told us the facility had been cleared. We were merely picking up the baggage.”

“Some baggage.” Aomine rolls his eyes. He nudges Imayoshi in the side. “We should’ve charged extra.”

Imayoshi doesn’t laugh. He is dangerously quiet. Meanwhile, Nijimura continues, “We were ordered to rendezvous with you, get the crates on board, and let no one near them. Two out of three.”

He scowls at Aomine, who shrugs. “Hey, if you had straight up told us, none of this would have happened.”

“Told you what?” Nijimura huffs. “All I know is that they found something on that asteroid and it belongs to Akashi Enterprises and you weren’t supposed to stick your nose in it.”

“Enough!” Imayoshi stands up, giving them both a stern once-over. “It’s futile to argue over what could or should have been. Fact is that, whatever is in those crates, it’s dangerous. It already affected one of your men... in one way or another. And we have _twenty-seven_ of those on board.” He glances at Aomine. “I fear, nap time is over. Wake up the others.”

Aomine murmurs something about not being everyone’s messenger boy, but gets up nonetheless. Imayoshi stops him before he can walk out. “Wake up the colonel’s men too. We may need all hands on deck.” He looks back at Nijimura, who nods.

“Do I look like a freaking nurse to you?” Aomine grunts.

“Just do it, please,” Imayoshi says and it’s so devoid of his usual teasing that it gives Aomine pause. 

“Okay, fine, I’m going. I’m going.”

\---

Aomine has Tetsu rouse the rest of the crew first. He explains briefly what happened before heading on to wake Nijimura’s men—or what’s left of them, anyway. Apparently, they get decimated by the hour now.

“Err… captain?” Aomine stands before the smashed cryo pod.

 _”What is it, Aomine?”_ Imayoshi asks over the comms. He sounds annoyed.

“He—It got another one.”

_”What do you mean ‘another one’?”_

“Exactly what I said. It… there is—” Aomine gesticulates (as if Imayoshi will see that). “I’m standing in front of a busted cryo pod and the guy inside is gone, okay?”

The lid of the cryo chamber is hanging precariously off of one hinge, the glass sporting a big, ragged hole, and the floor is littered with shards. There is no blood, though, which is odd, considering that a person has presumably been eaten here.

 _”Who is it?”_ Imayoshi inquires.

Aomine rolls his eyes. “He didn’t exactly leave a note.” He goes searching through the adjoining locker. He finds the guy’s uniform, and reads the faded name tag. “Ishida Hideki.”

Imayoshi doesn’t respond, so Aomine continues to dig around the room. The other two pods seem untouched. Maybe ‘Bob’ has a strict one-per-hour-diet. “Ishida Hideki,” Aomine mumbles, while initiating the wake up sequence on the remaining pods. “Which one of them was that again?”

A picture flares to life in front of him. “Huh,” Aomine muses, “shame. Didn’t look like an asshole.”

 _How can you tell?_ Tetsu wonders.

Aomine shrugs. “He’s got honest eyes.”

_What are honest eyes?_

“You know the way that Imayoshi looks when he sets the price for a cargo run? The opposite of that.”

Tetsu is silent for a moment. He is probably comparing footage. _I see,_ he concludes. _I will make a note of it for future reference._

“You do that,” Aomine says, reaching out to help the first disoriented soldier out of his pod. “Very important to know the difference between an honest man and an asshole.”

_You look like that, too, sometimes._

Aomine almost drops the guy. “Tetsu, if you’re calling me an asshole we—”

_You implied the same about First Lieutenant Haizaki. Why is he different?_

“He’s dead,” Aomine snarls.

The soldier in his arms perks up, giving him a look of pure terror. “What?”

“Oh, crap.”

\---

While Nijimura briefs his men, Aomine spends his time getting poked and prodded by Momoi. Her nursing skills are shit though because, technically, she’s not even a doctor. Not that kind of doctor, anyway.

“Ow! God damn it!” Aomine flinches away, glaring at her. “Can you try not peeling my skin off?”

Normally, Momoi would snap back; probably threaten to skin him entirely if he doesn’t shut up. But she’s eerily humorless today. She merely worries her lower lip, giving the wound on his shoulder a concerned look. “Are you sure that thing just scratched you?”

“No. It tried to bite my head off, too,” Aomine snaps.

She slaps him over the head. “Be serious, Dai-chan.”

“I am! It did try to bite my head off!”

She remains quiet. Slowly, but surely, Aomine is getting worried. “What is it?” He twists around to get a look at what she’s doing. It’s not very effective.

“I don’t know, Dai-chan,” she says, hesitant. “This looks like it happened _days_ ago.”

“What?”

She picks at his shoulder, making a disgusted face, “It looks like it’s already healing. Only, it’s healing… weirdly.”

Aomine bats her hands away in an attempt to look at the wound. He can’t see a damned thing, though. “What do you mean ‘weird’?”

Momoi mirrors his confusion. “There’s some sort of scab on it. But it looks gross.”

“Wow.” Aomine grimaces. “Thanks.”

She shrugs, getting out of the way when he wobbles over to the small mirror above the sink. He pulls his shirt as far back as he can, inspecting the damage. She’s right, it does look gross.

“Ew,” Aomine agrees. He wonders if Momoi can just scrape it off. It looks like fucking fish scales. You can scrape scales off a fish, can’t you? “Yeah, it, uh, it’ll be fine,” Aomine decides. He flops back down on the chair in front of her. “Just put a bandage on it, okay?”

She’s clearly not happy with his decision. “Yes, doctor,” she mocks, but does it anyway. She could be a little gentler, though.

\---

Nijimura dispatches two of his men to search the Fishing Room. If Ishida is gone, ‘Bob’ must have somehow escaped. They come back to the flight deck, pale-faced, and with bad news.

“He… it… is still in there,” one of the men reports. He and his companion clearly don’t want to be here. Either because they have looked ‘Bob’ in his ugly as fuck face, or because everyone is staring at them.

“But if Bob didn’t get out then who—” Aomine breaks off, feeling the shift in attention. “What?”

Nijimura narrows his eyes at him. “Who is _‘Bob’_?”

“I—the thing.” Aomine gestures vaguely. “I figured it would be easier than calling it ‘space-lizard-shark-thing’ all the time.”

“So, you named it _’Bob’_?” Imayoshi’s eyebrows briefly travel above the rim of his glasses.

Aomine shrugs. “Things tend to be a lot less scary when they’re called Bob.” 

For a moment, Nijimura looks as if he might launch into a rant, but then he frowns, and stares into the distance in something akin to horror. “Oh my God, he has a point.”

Imayoshi sighs. “Sadly, he does.”

“I am right here, you know,” Aomine grumbles. “I can hear you.”

“Right.” Imayoshi sends him a fleeting smile. “Back to the initial point. Since… _Bob_ appears to still be locked up we can only conclude that we have two—” he cringes, “Bobs on board.”

“Yeah.” Aomine nods wisely. “I was wondering how Bob number one managed to eat Ishida. That explains a lot.”

“Actually,” Momoi interrupts. “I don’t think anyone’s been eaten… yet.” She was fiddling with some code in the corner. It’s usually pointless to address her when she’s coding. She creates this impregnable bubble of _shut up_ around her that even Aomine has trouble penetrating. It’s her happy place, and she hates to be interrupted.

“Then where did they go?” Aomine asks, while Momoi prompts Tetsu into unfolding a screen in mid-air for her.

“That’s the thing.” Momoi gives them a dark look, shaking her head. “I don’t think they went anywhere. Look here.” She brings up a bunch of fluctuating lines and all sorts of stats that Aomine vaguely identifies as part of the cryo system. “Tetsu monitors everyone’s body functions during cryo sleep. This is Haizaki shortly after take-off.”

They all lean in closer, trying to find abnormalities. There aren’t any. Healthy as a horse, as they say.

“So?” Imayoshi says.

The stream of data speeds up, until the time stamp shows today’s date. “This is his stream about twenty-four hours ago,” Momoi explains, and for a moment, the stats continue along their even path before going completely haywire. Eventually, they disappear entirely. It’s not a flat line. Aomine has seen people flatlining. It’s terrible and it makes an ugly sound. This doesn’t make a sound. Everything is just _gone_. As if Haizaki had suddenly ceased to exist.

“Impossible.” Imayoshi breathes as if in awe.

Momoi shakes her head, shrugging. “It’s the same with Ishida. I checked.”

“What are you saying?” Nijimura chips in. “That they just… vanished?”

“No,” Momoi replies calmly. She weaves her fingers through the holograms and brings up Tetsu’s life sign monitor. “Almost the exact moment that Haizaki and Ishida disappeared, Tetsu-kun picked up two new life signs.” They all stare at her in confusion. She sighs. “See, Tetsu-kun has everyone’s DNA on file. You don’t get on this ship without Tetsu-kun knowing exactly who you are. But these things appeared out of nowhere, just when the genetic signature of two known members of your team vanished. That’s not a coincidence.”

“Wait, wait.” Aomine squints. “Are you implying that Bob _is_ Haizaki?”

She cringes, wiggling her hand. “Not one hundred percent. Presumably, it’s still them, but their DNA has been altered beyond the point at which Tetsu-kun can successfully identify them.”

Imayoshi turns to Nijimura. “Does this happen regularly on your squad?”

Nijimura doesn’t warrant this with an answer. He purses his upper lip like a defiant five-year-old and glares daggers at Imayoshi instead.

“How do you suddenly go all space lizard, though?” Aomine muses.

Momoi cocks her head to the side, tapping her chin in thought. “The alteration of DNA is common practice these days. Take Tetsu-kun, for example. He is basically made of DNA.” She pauses when Imayoshi motions for her to get to the point. “Anyway, my best guess would be some sort of parasite. There are numerous organisms that can alter the genetic code of their hosts, in order to accommodate them.”

“Where would you get such a parasite from—” Aomine frowns. The attention of the entire Tōō crew focuses on Nijimura.

“I’m guessing we have twenty-seven crates of parasites on board, am I right?” Imayoshi says with a smile as forthcoming as a switchblade.

“That’s where I remember them from!” Aomine interjects. “Those were the two that closed up the crate—”

“You mean the one that _you opened and stuck your nose in_?” Nijimura growls. “I already told you, I had no idea what was in those crates, and it was _fine_ until _you_ decided to play health inspector. And now I have lost two men because of this!”

Aomine is about two seconds away from throwing punches. He steps into Nijimura’s personal space. “And if you had used your brain when you found that research facility empty, I wouldn’t have had to check any crates in the first place because they wouldn’t even have gotten on board.”

“Gentlemen.” Imayoshi steps between them. “We can argue about whose fault it is, or we can get the situation under control.” He glances at Momoi. “Can we assume that this parasite latched on to them when they closed the crate?”

Momoi flinches, and it’s only now that Aomine notices that she has been eyeing him weirdly. He has a pretty good idea what she wants to say. He discreetly shakes his head no, silently asking her not to mention the wound on his shoulder. She lets out a little sigh of irritation, but goes on to answer Imayoshi’s question. “Probably. Unless the crates have been opened before.”

“They were sealed when we picked them up,” Nijimura provides, throwing Aomine a pointed look.

“Good.” Imayoshi nods. “So, as long as we keep it that way we shouldn’t have any more of these fellas running around. Since I need my crew to run this ship, I can’t have any of them stand around the cargo hold the entire time. Perhaps you can help out, colonel?” He turns to Nijimura with a surprisingly charming smile. “I’m sure Aomine will be delighted to return your weapons to you.”

Aomine is not delighted. They confiscated the pulsar weapons for a reason before going into cryo sleep. He doesn’t like the idea of a dozen military goons, armed to their teeth, buzzing around their ship. Unfortunately, the current situation may require more manpower than they have right now.

Nijimura’s thoughts seem to be along the same lines, even though he is twice as unhappy about it. “Fine,” he grumbles. “I will send someone down there.”

“Great!” Imayoshi rubs his hands together, eerily pleased. “Aomine, I think it’s time we bring out the big guns.”

Aomine brightens up, because _plasma rifle_.

“Wait.” Momoi stops him before he can leave. “Tetsu-kun won’t let you fire any lethal shots.”

“That’s okay.” Aomine shrugs. “I can aim at their knee caps or whatever they have down there.”

She rolls his eyes at him. “No. What I meant was: Tetsu-kun still identifies them as human. He won’t let any human in his care come to harm. He’s programmed like that.”

“I could punch them?” Aomine asks, hopeful. He’s been itching to get back at Haizaki ‘Bob’. That damned lizard ruined his shirt.

Momoi’s shoulders sag. “Yes. Yes, you could punch him.”

Aomine grins, satisfied.

“You would have to be very fast though.” Imayoshi pats Aomine on the back. “Perhaps we should get out the stunners, just to be safe.”

“Fine.” Aomine gives in. “I’ll go get the—”

The alarm goes off. And it’s not the ‘Careful, Wakamatsu has set the kitchen on fire’ kind of alarm. This one means serious trouble, flashy lights and all.

 _The Fishing Room has been breached._ Tetsu informs them, eternally calm.

“Did it get out?” Imayoshi asks, breathless.

_It appears so. My tracking data is inaccurate, but it seems to be moving away from the Fishing Room._

“Shit,” Aomine curses. Nijimura reacts before Aomine can even move out of the way. He pushes past Aomine and is out of sight in an instant.

“I have men down there!”

“Wait!” Aomine scurries after him. “You can’t—” He foregoes yelling in order to bring up the inventory. It floats along, allowing him to select the weapons he wants to have released. He orders Tetsu to hail the rest of the crew, and slides around the corner, down the narrow stairs. They do have an elevator, but the stairs are faster.

It takes him a couple of seconds to get the stunner rifle out of the weapons dispenser. It’s a pretty nifty system to arm your crew, no matter where they are on the ship, but it’s still not as fast as Aomine would like. In fact, he would prefer to be armed _all the time_.

He hurries down the corridor, weapon at the ready. The next thing he knows, he almost shoots Nijimura in the back because the man has stopped behind the corner, frozen to the spot. Aomine peers past him and immediately knows why. The entire corridor, top to bottom, is covered in people. Well, parts of people. It’s impossible to tell how many humans all these parts used to belong to.

Wakamatsu and Sakurai skid around the corner on the other side of the corridor, stopping dead in their tracks when they see the mess. Aomine gives them a quick nod to lower their weapons. It’s too late now, anyway.

Nijimura doesn’t make a single sound. Aomine is bad at this comforting business as it is, so without verbal clues he’s pretty much lost. He considers patting Nijimura on the back but thinks better of it when he sees Nijimura’s face. He looks like he might bite Aomine’s hand off. So, all Aomine can do is step aside and let Nijimura pass. He disappears around the corner, his steps echoing for a while, until there’s a dull _thump_ , and the metallic rattling of the stairs. Aomine wonders if he’ll find a dent in the wall where Nijimura just punched it.

“What’s wrong with hi—” Imayoshi halts mid-step. “Oh. I see.” He takes in the bloody chaos and Aomine can already see him compiling the cleaning bill in his head. Some people say Aomine is cold-hearted, but compared to Imayoshi he’s a fucking radiator of charity and brotherly love. “Where is the—” Imayoshi winces. “Where is Bob?”

They all shrug. Imayoshi sighs. “Good thing you were never forced to hunt for food. You would all starve to death.”

“Let’s see you go after these things then, _captain_ ,” Aomine snarls. Imayoshi merely grants him an impassive glance over the rim of his glasses. It’s hard to rattle somebody’s cage when they don’t have one.

“What do we do with them, though?” Sakurai speaks up, his voice barely carrying over. Neither of them dare to step into the mess that is separating them.

“Well, we can’t leave them lying around here, that’s for sure,” Imayoshi muses. He glances up at the ceiling. “Or hanging around here, as it is.”

Aomine smiles. “I have an idea.”

“If you’re thinking ‘airlock’, don’t,” Imayoshi says.

“Why not?” Aomine argues, pointing at the pile of dismembered bodies. “It would get rid of this mess nice and clean.”

“Maybe,” Imayoshi concedes. “But unless you are willing to explain to colonel Nijimura why you jettisoned his men, however mauled, I suggest you think of something else.”

That’s a good point. Nijimura may be a pompous ass, in Aomine’s opinion, but he has the distinct air of someone who can kill a man with a can opener.

“I have a different idea,” Aomine offers after some collective staring.

Imayoshi turns to him, eyebrows drawn to together in a frown. “Does it involve airlocks?”

Aomine shakes his head no, grinning. Imayoshi eyes him with unveiled suspicion, but apparently he can’t think of a way for Aomine to be any more disrespectful to the dead than he already has been. “Okay,” he says eventually. “Take care of it.”

“Wait. Who? Me?”

“I thought I just heard you volunteer.”

Aomine waves his hands. “Nonono, I just said I had _an idea_. I may be persuaded to supervise Sakurai on it but—” There’s a tiny yelp from the other side of the corridor.

“Sorry,” Imyaoshi interjects. “Sakurai will be busy handing out weapons to the colonel’s men.” He jerks his head at the two, who bustle off immediately, a little too eager to get out of there. Imayoshi turns on his heel, before heading up the stairs. “Remember: No airlocks.”

Aomine gapes at the corridor full of gore before him. “What, no help?” He yells, but nobody answers.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warning: creative storage of bodies.

Aomine groans from the strain of stuffing the last arm into the cryo pod. The squelching sound as he kicks the lid shut is pretty disgusting, but it holds, as far as he can tell.

 _You do know that cryo pods are not supposed to be used like that, don’t you?_ Tetsu asks, vaguely judging.

“What?” Aomine replies, adjusting the settings. “Do you want me to store them in the freezer?” He hits the confirm button, and smiles when the cryo system hums into action. He peels the shoulder-high gloves off his arms, dumping them in the trash shoot. “Besides, it’s not like Haizaki is going to have any more use for it. And neither do we.” He can already picture Imayoshi merrily adding ‘Cryo Pod Replacement’ to his bill to Akashi Enterprises.

“Any news of our two Bobs?” Aomine pulls his sweater up to wipe his face. This whole ordeal was more strenuous than he expected. He’s sweating like he just stepped out of a sauna.

_Yes. Momoi-san has implemented a new tracking algorithm. I am able to track their whereabouts more precisely now. One of them is in the ceiling above the cargo hold, the other is being pursued by colonel Nijimura’s men as we speak._

Aomine perks up at that. “What do you mean ‘in the ceiling’?” The cargo hold is supposed to be sealed and guarded. How did this thing get past the guards—“Oh,” Aomine gasps. “That’s why it’s in the ceiling. _Damn!_ ” These bastards are _learning_.

“We had better get down there, Tetsu.” Aomine grabs his stunner. He’s still exhausted, but he tries to shake it off as he makes his way down to C level.

Two of Nijimura’s, admittedly, interchangeable men intercept him in front of the door. “We need to get in there,” Aomine urges, and attempts to unlock the cargo hold.

They step between him and the lock pad, stunners trained at him. “The colonel said nobody is to go in there.”

“Well, somebody _is_ already in there.” Aomine gestures wildly. “It’s in the ceiling and if we don’t—”

“Calm down, buddy,” the taller one says. “If there’s anything in there we need to call for backup first.”

Aomine blinks, stunned. This guy did not just call him ‘buddy’. The last person who called him that is now an ear and an arm short. Aomine doesn’t even care what Nijimura might have to say to that. “You know what? Fuck it,” he decides and puts both of them down with his stunner. Lowest setting, easy peasy, no harm done. There, he can be civilized.

“ _Buddy,_ ” Aomine snorts as he steps over the unconscious men, shaking his head.

 _What is a ‘buddy’?_ Tetsu asks. He seems to always be interested in things that elicit emotions from people. Or, at least, emotions from Aomine. Sometimes Aomine wonders if he acts the same with other members of the crew. And if so, what do Tetsu and Imayoshi talk about? Imayoshi doesn’t have any emotions to speak of.

Aomine shrugs, thumbing in his code. “It’s just a thing people call each other sometimes. Like friends, only more—look, there’s two ways to be buddies: one, by being actual friends, and two, by being a condescending asshole.”

_Can we be buddies?_

“What?” Aomine pauses, hand hovering over the glowing red button that will open the door.

_We are friends, aren’t we?_

“Uhm.” Aomine isn’t sure this is the right time to ponder his relationship with Tetsu. It seems like something that might require more thought than he has time for right now. “I suppose so? I mean, yeah, I think we are.”

 _I will try not to be a condescending asshole then. You don’t seem to like that,_ Tetsu says. He sounds like a condescending asshole. It’s okay, though. They’re friends. Aomine reckons, it’s official now.

“You already are.” Aomine smirks, and thinks of Tetsu’s hologram when they played basketball. “But you’re cute, so I’m gonna let you get away with it.”

_Thank you, Aomine-kun. You are cute too._

Aomine stifles a laugh. If they had more time, he would explain to Tetsu why he is not in any way ‘cute’, but right now they have more pressing problems. He taps the button, readying his stunner to blast anything that might come at him. The door slides open, revealing a seemingly undisturbed room.

“Goggles,” Aomine whispers. He doesn’t want to turn on the lights, lest he alarm the thing. It might scurry, or it might attack—either way, the darkness might help to surprise it. Fortunately, Aomine doesn’t have to go in blind. Tetsu conjures a half-transparent visor, following every of Aomine’s movements. It illuminates the otherwise dark room, wherever Aomine looks. He read somewhere that the military used to have this thing called ‘night goggles’ that they used in combat. He liked the name, so he started calling them that. Tetsu never objected.

The cargo hold is quiet, except for Aomine’s footsteps. He tries to keep it down, but his boots squeak on the floor whenever he turns. He winces every time, quickly scanning his surroundings for any movement.

He sneaks further into the room, checking the crates. As far as he can see they are all still secured. Maybe they got lucky and Aomine surprised this thing before it could do any damage.

Something creaks under his heel. Aomine swears, low under his breath, and looks down. He stepped on a rectangular panel. He frowns, and glances up at the ceiling. One panel is missing, and in the open gap—

“Crap!” Aomine dives out of the way, shooting blindly. He hears a screech, and something clicking, like claws grappling for purchase on smooth ground.

“Oh no, you are not getting away this time,” Aomine growls and gets back on his feet. He dashes forward, throwing himself behind a crate, and fires a shot. It must have hit _something_. The thing makes a wailing noise, followed by more panicked scurrying. This one seems to be a lot less interested in getting up close and personal with Aomine. Must be the other one then—what’s his name?—Ishida.

Aomine crouches down, listening for movement. Something bumps against the crates two rows over. Aomine hauls himself up onto the crates, jumping rows in huge strides, firing at the aisle between them. He hears squeaking, snarling, something trying to get away. He is down to two stunner shots when he touches down on the ground, finding the thing squirming on the ground.

It’s the first time he gets a proper look at one of these creatures. It really doesn’t look very person-like anymore, except for the fact that it has two feet and something that could pass for hands—if hands generally had claws that can slice you in half. There are scales the size of Aomine’s fist on the thing’s back, and spikes that look as deadly as its teeth. Well, _fangs_ is probably more accurate. It has a tail, alright, but the lizard analogy is a bit off. It’s more like a lizard on steroids. It probably knows kung-fu, too.

The creature twitches. Aomine shoots it again, out of reflex. He steps closer, kicking it with his boot. It doesn’t move. He fires his last shot. Better safe than sorry.

Reassured, Aomine finally takes a breath of relief. He wasn’t aware he needed it. He starts heaving like he’s drowning. It feels like his heart has swollen to twice its normal size, straining against his ribcage. “What the hell?” Aomine wheezes, rubbing his chest.

_Aomine-kun, your vitals are worrying. Are you alright?_

“Yeah, yeah, I’m—” He actually needs a moment to catch his breath. “I’m fine.”

_Are you sure? Because your heart rate is abnormally high, and you seem to be running a fever._

“It’s nothing.” Aomine pants, betraying his own words. He staggers and plants his ass on the first thing behind him. It’s one of the crates. He grunts in disgust and gets back up, wobbling over to the wall. He winces as he slides down to the floor. 

_Perhaps you should have Momoi-san take a look at you—_

“I said _I’m fine_ ,” Aomine hisses. He eyes the creature lying motionless before him. _Ishida_. He was compromised when he fiddled with the crate, and now he’s some sort of raptor-lizard-shark. What if the ache in Aomine’s chest means that he’s turning into one of them? What if these—these parasites get passed on via injury?

He shudders. Cold sweat is trickling down his spine. He doesn’t want to be a lizard, regardless of how cool it would be to scare the living shit out of the rest of the crew. But it wouldn’t be just that, would it? He’s seen what happens when these things get angry. Or maybe they just enjoy ripping people apart, who knows? Either way, he may not be especially fond of most people on this ship, but none of them deserve to _die_. And he certainly doesn’t want to be their cause of death either.

 _Aomine-kun?_ Tetsu’s voice is soft, as if he’s afraid to ask.

Aomine groans. His breathing seems to have leveled out, but his joints still hurt. “I’m okay,” he says, more amicable this time. “Just, uh, give me a second, okay?”

 _Okay._ Tetsu goes quiet. Aomine can almost feel Tetsu switching off all sensors in the area. He genuinely leaves Aomine alone for a while.

Aomine hopes nobody was watching the surveillance stream. He would be in deep shit. Not just that Wakamatsu would never let him hear the end of it, but Momoi would probably quarantine him. Knowing Imayoshi, he might actually suggest putting Aomine down before he can turn into a homicidal reptile.

“Wait.” Aomine frowns. “That’s it!” He struggles to his feet. “Tetsu! Tetsu, I know who tampered with your memories.” He remembers that Tetsu can’t hear him right now. “Shit.” He shuffles over to the door, using the crates for support. If he doesn’t get this under control soon he’s going to have a lot of explaining to do.

He hits one of the buttons—doesn’t matter which—and Tetsu subtly seeps back into the room’s systems.

 _You have not gotten better,_ Tetsu states.

“Yeah,” Aomine admits, but waves it off immediately. “That’s not important right now. I know who erased your memories. It was Haizaki.”

_How do you know?_

Aomine gulps down the lump in his throat. “Because I might be turning into one of these things.” He listens with bated breath for a response, even if he doesn’t know what to expect. Anger? Shock? Denial? Tetsu is a _machine_. It’s silly to expect anything from him but hard facts. And yet, Aomine hopes for _something_. Tetsu, though, stays quiet. Maybe he senses that Aomine isn’t quite finished yet. “I’m pretty sure I won’t like how the others will react to that,” Aomine goes on. “I bet Haizaki was scared too when he noticed something was off.” 

_But I am not detecting any changes in your physique,_ Tetsu says. In Aomine’s mind it sounds defiant.

“Not yet.” Aomine throws the unconscious lizard man on the floor a dark look. If that’s what the future holds in store for him he would rather it be the present for a little while longer. “Listen, Tetsu, don’t tell anyone, okay?”

_If you suspect that you have been infected, you should get examined._

“ _‘Examined’_.” Aomine laughs, even though it’s more of a dry cough at this point. “Now there’s a word that totally doesn’t make me think of scalpels and syringes.”

 _We don’t use any of these anymore, Aomine-kun,_ Tetsu retorts, miffed.

Aomine snorts. “Yeah, we have other instruments of torture these days. Look, I just need some time to—” he gestures vaguely, “to figure this out, okay? And I don’t want the others to do it for me. Don’t worry, I’ll tell them.” _Eventually,_ Aomine adds silently.

He slowly lifts himself into a standing position, straightening his back as best as he can. His breathing has evened out, but that doesn’t mean his lungs won’t go apeshit on him again at the first sign of stress.

_May I make a suggestion?_

Aomine sighs. “Sure.”

_Please take something to lower the fever, at least._

“I can do that.” Aomine nods in agreement, smiling quietly to himself. He glances at the captured raptor thing. “Time to get this shit sorted out, then.”

\---

They drop Bob #2 on the examination table in the med bay. Aomine steps back, trying hard to keep his heavy panting to what is expected of a healthy 30-something guy.

Momoi eyes him from the side. “Are you okay?”

“Me?” Aomine croaks. He clears his throat and takes a deep breath. “Yeah, no, I’m fine. Absolutely fine.”

“Are you sure? Because you look a bit feverish.” Momoi reaches out to check his temperature with her palm but Aomine quickly ducks away.

“Of course I’m sure,” he huffs. “I just had a death match with a space lizard. Will you give me a break?”

She smacks his chest. She does it all the time, but when she looks like she wants to _delete him_ it’s time to treat the situation with caution. “We’re all worried here, Dai-chan. And you are not helping by behaving like a jerk. You will not give me attitude for worrying about you, you hear?”

Aomine means to object, but he realizes the others are giving him weird looks. Nijimura’s face basically says _’court martial’_. “Okay, okay,” Aomine amends. “I’m sorry. I just—it’s been a rough day.”

“Well,” Imayoshi says, glancing down at the creature. “You’re not the only one who’s been through a rough patch.”

“Which one of them do you reckon it is?” Momoi asks. Her anger dissolves quickly in the face of genetic mutation. Her expression wavers between scientific enthusiasm and pity. It’s a bit like the way she looks at Aomine sometimes.

Aomine nonchalantly leans back against the sink behind him. “My guess would be it’s the other guy, what’s his name… Ishida. Yeah, Ishida.”

Nijimura’s brow furrows. “What makes you think that?”

“He seemed less asshole-ish.” Haizaki Bob clearly tried to hurt him, maybe even kill him. This one just wanted to get away.

Aomine half expects Nijimura to get angry, but he merely makes a face and nods. “Point.”

Good to know that Aomine’s asshole senses are still functioning.

“Whoever it is,” Imayoshi interjects. “Or _was_ , we need to figure out a way to deal with him.”

Aomine raises his hand. Imayoshi grimaces. “No.”

“Why? It would be quick and clean. Somebody could say a few words,” Aomine advocates.

“No,” Imayoshi insists. “We are not throwing anything out the airlock.”

Nijimura’s face goes from _’court martial’_ to _’Screw that, I will shoot you right here’_. “You want to do _what_?”

“Don’t worry, nobody will throw anything out the airlock,” Imayoshi says with a pointed glare in Aomine’s direction. “Any other ideas? Ideas that _don’t_ involve death in space?”

“We could put him in one of the cryo pods,” Wakamatsu ponders aloud.

Next to him, Sakurai gloomily shakes his head. “I don’t think he’ll fit.”

“If you bend his legs kind of like this-” Aomine starts rearranging the creature’s limbs. Why the others are staring at him in horror is beyond him. He is being very delicate.

In the middle of illustrating where exactly one would have to, sort of, _fold_ the thing’s head into its chest, Nijimura reaches over the table and grabs Aomine by the collar. At this distance, court martial seems preferable. “Listen here, you little shit,” he snarls. “This is one of my men you are talking about. And as long as we don’t know for certain whether this state is reversible or not, we will treat him as such. Do I make myself clear?”

“Yes! Yes, okay.” Aomine breaks free from Nijimura’s hold, shooting him a resentful look. “I got it. You wanna keep him. Fine by me. But I won’t be stuffing anyone’s remains into any cryo pods no more, just so you know.”

“What cryo pod?” Wakamatsu and Sakurai ask, almost in unison.

“Nothing.” Aomine and Imayoshi reply instantly. Vaguely confused silence ensues, during which everyone is obviously trying very hard not to imagine what Aomine could have done to a cryo pod.

Momoi tentatively steps forward. “I could try to put him in a cryo-like state, using Tetsu-kun’s cooling system. If we can find anything big enough to put him in.”

Aomine raises his hand.

“No.” Imayoshi pushes his glasses up to rub at his eyes. “We are not putting him in the freezer.”

“Hey, I am trying to be constructive here,” Aomine complains.

“Please don’t.” Imayoshi sighs. He nods at Momoi. “You do that. Wakamatsu and Sakurai, go see if you can find something big enough to put him in.” The two of them nod and bustle out of the room. They always get off easy, these two.

“What about the rest of us?” Aomine asks. They can’t just sit around and wait for Bob #1 to come and kill them.

“We?” Imayoshi smirks. “We are going hunting.”

Aomine likes the sound of that. Imayoshi ushers them out, instructing Susa to stay with Momoi and help her with their patient.

“If anything happens to her,” Aomine hisses in passing, making Susa flinch. “I will punch you so hard in the dick your balls are gonna come out of your mouth.”

“Yes, yes,” Susa yelps. “I get it. Geez.”

Imayoshi sends him a scolding glance but Aomine doesn’t care. He’s got places to be, Bobs to kill. Or, well, to knock out, at least.

\---

Nijimura pairs his men off in twos and sends them out to scour the ship for any signs of Haizaki. Why the man himself chooses to go with Aomine is a mystery. One that Aomine has neither the time nor the desire to unravel. They sneak along the corridors down by the engine bay in slightly annoyed silence.

“You got a lock on him, Tetsu?” Aomine whispers.

_He is directly above you._

Aomine curses under his breath. “Is he moving?”

_Not at the moment._

“You have anyone up there?” Aomine throws Nijimura a look over his shoulder. Nijimura nods and taps the little bud in his ear to hail his men. Aomine rolls his eyes. This is antiquated bullshit compared to Tetsu.

“Why don’t you tell Tetsu to call your men?” Aomine doesn’t even know why he asks. It bugs him that other people won’t trust Tetsu with their lives. As far as Aomine is concerned, he trusts Tetsu more than most beings of flesh and blood.

Nijimura shrugs. “Force of habit. Why do you call your A.I. ‘Tetsu’ anyway?”

“Because that’s his name?” Aomine says, irritated.

Nijimura stares at him for a moment, and then nods knowingly, like Aomine is a kid that tells fantastic stories just to make himself interesting.

“What?” Aomine snarls, now fully facing Nijimura.

Instead of being intimidated, Nijimura merely does the lip curl thing again, and gives him a pitying look. “It doesn’t have a name, just a denomination.”

“Stop calling Tetsu an ‘it’!” Aomine has his finger on the trigger. Granted, it’s just a stunner but at this distance a shot in the balls can make a man regret a lot of things.

Nijimura is unimpressed. He heaves another sigh. “What would you like me to call it?”

“I want you to call him by his name,” Aomine growls, putting the stunner straight against Nijimura’s forehead. He’s never shot anyone like this before but if Nijimura doesn’t apologize right the fuck now Aomine is going to switch off his brain through his skull and nothing will stop him. “His name is Tetsu and if you—”

At this moment, the ceiling comes crashing down. They postpone their fight in order to dive for safety. The massive ceiling panel lands on the floor next to them like a frayed pancake, sending sparks flying where the cables got ripped apart. The lights go out almost instantly.

“What the fuck was that?” Aomine breathes heavily. He’s acutely aware of his heart pumping at a rate that is beyond worrying. His ribcage feels like it’s going to explode. All he can think is _’Not again, please, not here, not now!’_

 _I told you, he is directly above you,_ Tetsu replies coldly.

Aomine grimaces, half in exasperation, half in pain. “It would’ve been nice to mention that he is _in the vents_.”

_Sorry. I thought that was obvious._

“No, it wasn’t,” Aomine grumbles, scrambling up from the floor. He blindly fumbles for the small flashlight attached to his stunner. It illuminates a concerned looking Nijimura.

“Are you okay?” Nijimura asks.

“I’m fine,” Aomine lies. His hands are sweaty, and the stunner keeps slipping from his grasp.

Nijimura switches his flashlight on too. “You don’t look fine.”

“I just got almost crushed by the ceiling. So, can everyone please stop diagnosing me?” Aomine huffs. It comes out through clenched teeth. He hopes it sounds aggressive.

“Whatever.” Nijimura shakes his head, pushing past him. Above them, the ventilation pipes show dents and slashes where something heavy with sharp claws has made its way through. It seems to be going for the engine bay.

“That’s—” Aomine hates himself for having to pause to take a few steadying breaths. “That’s a dead end.”

“Why would he deliberately trap himself?” Nijimura mumbles. Aomine has a feeling it wasn’t directed at him. He answers anyway.

“Because he’s stupid?”

Nijimura flings his stunner around to flash the light directly into Aomine’s eyes, making him flinch. “That’s interesting, coming from someone whose only friend is a computer program.”

“Don’t make me hurt you,” Aomine warns. It’s a lot less effective with all the wheezing, though.

Nijimura peers through the porthole in the airlock that separates the engine bay from the rest of the ship. “You don’t look like you could knock out so much as a fly right now, so I would cut back on the threats if I were you.”

Something near the door creaks. They squeeze in front of the airlock just in time to see sparks flying somewhere off to the right. Then the control panel on their side goes dead.

“Shit.” Aomine pants. “He ripped out the control panel.”

“Can’t your A.I. override it?”

“How?” Aomine snorts. “The door isn’t connected to the system anymore.”

Nijimura makes a miffed face, but seems to accept this. “What’s in there? There’s gotta be a reason why he went this way instead of heading to the elevator.”

Aomine shrugs. “Engine bay,” he says, breathless. “Like I said, it’s a dead end. Only the engines—”

They both look at each other, horrified. And that’s when the alarm goes off.


	5. Chapter 5

Wakamatsu steps out of the engine room, clad in his heavy protection suit. He kicks the closing airlock for good measure.

“What’s the damage?” Imayoshi inquires.

Wakamatsu tears his gloves off, taking a deep, calming breath. “He yanked out the water pipes.” He gestures at the fogged up porthole. “I managed to patch them up, but twelve of our fuel cells are dead. I’ll have to take them out one by one to check if the membranes on the others are still intact. I wouldn’t get my hopes up, though. Water supply might have been out for too long.”

It’s all gibberish to Aomine. He’s basically just here because he couldn’t make it up the stairs. And now he’s trying to keep the coughing to a minimum. He hopes his sitting casually on Wakamatsu’s tool crate will cover up the fact that standing for a prolonged period of time is getting increasingly taxing. 

Imayoshi’s perpetual smile has been replaced by a stony facade of calm. “How much time do we have?”

Wakamatsu shrugs. He accepts the towel Sakurai hands him, and rubs his face and hair dry. “The emergency generators kicked in, but that gives us a day, maybe two, if we shut down all non-essential systems. If I can get the fuel cells up and running again, we should be fine, for another few weeks or so.”

“What happens if you can’t?” Sakurai pipes up. He looks worse than Aomine feels. A lot more scared, too. They give him a collective look of pity. “Oh,” he says and his gaze drops to his feet. His default expression of vague terror morphs into resignation, which is possibly the saddest thing Aomine has ever seen.

“Well, we’re not dead yet,” Imayoshi intones and taps Sakurai’s shoulder. “Broadcast a distress signal. See if Momoi can help you boost it.”

It takes Sakurai a second or two to respond, but eventually he nods firmly, and shuffles off. Imayoshi sighs. “Had to get him out of here. I can’t look at that face.”

Aomine and Wakamatsu silently agree. “You really think anybody will hear us out here?” Aomine asks.

“Would you rather sit here and do nothing?” Imayoshi replies. Even Imayoshi’s nerves seem to be frayed at this point. Aomine didn’t think he would get to live to see the day that captain Imayoshi loses his calm. He would make fun of it if he didn’t have trouble breathing.

Wakamatsu flings the towel over his shoulder and puts his gloves back on. “We should start saving energy,” he says as the airlock swings open. “Even if I get the rest of the cells back online, we won’t have enough energy to get us all the way to Rakuzan. We’ll have to stop for replacements on one of the moons.”

Imayoshi nods, lost in thought. Aomine watches Wakamatsu disappear into the fine mist that has taken over the engine bay. He would never admit it out loud, but he feels rather useless at the moment. Everyone is doing something; Nijimura is scouring the ship with his men, trying to capture Haizaki. Momoi is taking care of the other Bob and will be working with Sakurai on the broadcast signal soon, Wakamatsu is busy with the engine, and Susa is still on Momoi protection detail. That leaves the captain and Aomine, sitting in a corridor. At least, Imayoshi seems to be plotting. All Aomine can do is try not to fold in on himself. His joints feel like he has been lifting rocks all day. If he looks closely he can even see the veins on his hands standing out more starkly than usual. He keeps checking his reflection for any sign of scales.

“What did he damage the engines for anyway?” Aomine muses, to get his mind off of things. “Leaves him stranded here just like the rest of us.”

Imayoshi scowls. “Maybe to get us to hail other ships. Once we touch down on Rakuzan I reckon there won’t be any getting away for him. But here, in space? Nothing easier than to slip aboard another ship when everyone is busy rescuing people.”

“Well, shit,” Aomine concludes.

They fall silent again, until Imayoshi taps his chin, frowning. “We may have to shut down Tetsuya.”

“What?” Aomine scrambles up, eyes wide. It’s hard to tell if his heart is racing because he’s turning into a space raptor or because he’s afraid of losing Tetsu. “You can’t do that!”

Imayoshi raises his eyebrows. “Oh, can’t I?”

Aomine gestures wildly. “He runs the ship! We can’t fly this thing without him.”

“Technically, we can. It’s just going to be a bit bumpy.”

Aomine doesn’t quite know what to say. He has no rational arguments besides _‘Do not take my friend away or I am going to have to hurt someone’_ and that’s not very convincing. And so, he grasps at straws. “He’s the only one who can track these raptor things!”

“Oh?” Imayoshi turns to face him. Wrong fucking straw. “I thought there was only one left?”

“That’s what I said.” Aomine swallows hard, trying to look confident.

Imayoshi cocks his head to the side, eyeing Aomine. “You don’t look so good. Is there anything you would like to tell me?”

Aomine’s lungs push out a tiny wheezing sound. It’s possibly the most embarrassing sound his body has made to date. He clears his throat and shakes his head. “No. No, I’m okay.”

This has got to be the least artful lie Aomine has ever told. But the thing about Imayoshi is that he doesn’t pry. He will give you the opportunity to come forward with whatever you have to say, but if you don’t he will gladly hand the consequences over to you and be done with it. “Fine,” Imayoshi says after a few moments of silence. “But I will not put your personal feelings for a computer over the safety of this crew. We are shutting him down.”

“No!” Aomine bellows, stumbling after Imayoshi. “No, you can’t—” He stops dead in his tracks. “What do you mean ‘personal feelings’? I don’t have personal f—” He breaks off because, well, he does have personal feelings for Tetsu.

“Yes, you keep telling yourself that.” Imayoshi glances at him over his shoulder before rounding the corner.

“I don’t have… feelings,” Aomine mumbles to himself as he leans against the wall, panting. He gathers one last ounce of strength to yell, “I won’t be the one to tell Satsuki!”

There is no reply.

\---

Aomine likes to think that Momoi kicked up a great fuss. He smiles at the idea of Momoi giving Imayoshi a piece of her mind about shutting down Tetsu. He wishes she had won.

_Good night, Aomine-kun._

Aomine doesn’t know if he imagines Tetsu’s voice or not. The ship goes dark for a couple of seconds before the emergency lights flicker on. It’s quick, painless, and entirely anticlimactic. Aomine thinks there should have been a few explosions, at least. Tetsu should be taken offline with a bang, not with a simple click.

The Tōō is eerily quiet, now that Tetsu is gone. Or perhaps it’s just Aomine’s imagination. It still feels wrong.

He didn’t have the heart to go to Momoi’s coding cave to watch her pull the plug. He’ll get an earful about that later, no doubt. But he couldn’t bring himself to go. Besides, he is barely in a condition to walk. He dragged himself to his quarters before anyone could see him. And now he is sitting in the twilight of the emergency lighting, staring at his shaking hands in pure horror.

Everything about him feels like an open wound, throbbing, prickling, and aching. He thinks he might puke. Moments later he’s _sure_ that he’s going to puke.

Aomine hangs off of the small sink in his room like a drowning man clutching at a life raft. He coughs, spits, and misses the sink. He glares at the splotches on the floor like they have personally offended him. Looks like blood, mostly.

“Shit,” Aomine groans, heaving himself up. The mirror above the sink provides him with bonus visuals. The scarce lighting adds to the general zombie look he is rocking right now. His hair is sticking to his forehead, and his face is covered in a sheen of sweat. He fumbles the tap on, putting as much of his head under the cool water as he can manage, rinsing his mouth in hopes of getting rid of the coppery taste of blood.

He needs to get to the med bay. There has got to be something more potent on this ship than a couple of cold pills. He cringes, but manages to drag himself out onto the corridor. He grabs the stunner from the cupboard by the door but it won’t slip into his thigh holster on the first try. Not on the second, either.

“Fuck.” He shoves the stunner right past the holster. It clatters to the floor, the sound strangely muffled to his ears. He gives his weapon a forlorn look as it lies there on the ground, sweaty imprints on the handle. Picking it up seems like such a chore.

It takes him forever to bend down and grab it. Every muscle in his body protests. “When this is over I’m gonna sleep for nine thousand years,” Aomine grumbles. He uses the wall for support to get himself upright. He ends up staring straight at Haizaki.

The thing crouches at the end of the corridor, observing him with weirdly intelligent eyes. Aomine rolls his eyes at his own thoughts. _Of course_ it’s intelligent, it’s a freaking _person_. Just because it doesn’t speak or behave like him doesn’t mean it can’t slash his throat. Or something like that, anyway.

Haizaki Bob is bigger than the one that Aomine caught, which means it’s probably going to be an even bigger problem. Especially, when Aomine isn’t exactly up to par at the moment.

Aomine tightens his grip on the stunner, ignoring the stinging pain in his knuckles. Haizaki watches his every move, swaying slightly from side to side as if he was just chilling there. If Aomine can get off one decent shot they may have a chance of capturing Haizaki.

“Hey, Bob.” Aomine grimaces. “How’s it hangin’?”

Haizaki lifts his head and Aomine takes the opening. He flings himself to the side, aiming at Haizaki’s exposed chest. The blast glances off of Haizaki’s shoulder.

“Shit!” Aomine scrambles to get back onto his feet. His vision is a blur. All he sees when he turns around is a big blotch of rage coming at him. The impact throws him on his back, knocking the stunner out of his hand. At least, he can’t quite see Haizaki’s teeth this time while he fights not to get his throat torn out.

Holding Haizaki at bay with one arm, he gropes for the stunner. His fingers are stiff and his entire left side feels like it’s on fire, but at this distance he’s bound to land a hit. Haizaki snaps at his face, giving Aomine a good taste of his breath. It smells like hot glue and dead bodies.

Aomine grunts from the strain but finally gets a hold of his stunner. He tries to squeeze the trigger, but his finger won’t respond. He has mere seconds to process that stunning Haizaki’s brains to mush is not an option. What else to do with a stunner?

He twists it around and hits Haizaki over the head with it. That gives him the moment he needs to escape. The stunner is lost though. Aomine doesn’t waste a thought on picking it up. Instead, he stumbles down the corridor, skedaddling around the corner with little grace. He presses his left arm close to his body. It looks like he was having a row with a meat grinder. Strangely, some of the gashes seem to be healing already, albeit weirdly black and green around the edges. He doesn’t have to be a doctor to know that this is not how it works.

He can hear Haizaki’s claws clicking on the floor (and possibly the ceiling) behind him but doesn’t pay it any mind. He focuses solely on getting a head start and not coughing up his lungs in the process.

Aomine’s mind races. He can’t run forever—this is a ship, after all. A ship _in space_. Only so many places to go. He gets the idea to head for the engine bay. With a bit of luck Wakamatsu will still be working down there. Aomine doesn’t like asking for help but he can’t argue that he is currently in no condition to take on Haizaki on his own. He just wishes he could give Wakamatsu a heads up, but with Tetsu out of the picture there’s no way to reach him.

He hurtles down the stairs in a jumble of poorly coordinated extremities. His body tells him he should have taken the elevator, but his mind says getting into a confined space dangling on a bunch of wires while being chased by a mutated velociraptor is not a good idea.

Aomine risks a glance over his shoulder. He shouldn’t have. Haizaki is tearing the place apart. It’s a wonder the others haven’t been alerted yet by the sheer amount of ruckus Haizaki is kicking up.

A moment later, Aomine understands why. His foot gets caught in something at the end of the stairs and he falls face down into a pile of squishy stuff. Judging by the number of feet he can see upon first glance there are at least four dead guys crammed into the corner. Aomine doesn’t spend too much time counting. He’s vaguely aware that none of the faces are familiar. Looks like the number of men in Nijimura’s unit is wearing a little thin.

He clambers over the pile of bodies, fighting down the urge to puke. So, help is probably not coming any time soon. His last hope is Wakamatsu, then. He’s never going to live this down.

Aomine sprints around the corner and tumbles through the hatch. He hits the manual override button so hard his palm hurts. Haizaki is a tick too late and full on smashes into the closed door. That should give Aomine a couple of minutes. Haizaki is, sadly, not as stupid as Aomine would have liked. He’ll figure out that there’s a second entrance to this corridor from the elevator.

“Wakamatsu!” Aomine screams while he disables the manual override on the door. He shouts again but there’s no response. He pokes his head into the engine room, yelling until his voice cracks. The mist has settled down, but there’s no sign of Wakamatsu. Maybe he went to his workshop upstairs.

“Useless idiot.” Aomine wheezes. Looks like he will have to do this solo after all. He throws a couple of crates together and climbs the wall next to the airlock. He feels like an 80-year-old doing freeclimbing.

The vents run through the entire ship, which facilitates air circulation, but also presents a problem when you are trying to keep out a predator. Every compartment can be sealed off in case of emergencies, though. Aomine figures this qualifies.

There’s a little lever next to the ventilation grille. It releases a rapidly hardening foam into the pipes. Nothing goes in, nothing comes out. It also cuts off his fresh air supply, but if his plan works it will only be for a few minutes.

Aomine hears the telltale crackling of the foam, seeping into the corners and hardening. That’s step one. Step two is going to be a bit more difficult.

He peers around the corner. Haizaki doesn’t seem to be anywhere, so Aomine ventures out into the corridor. He limps over to the other hatch by the elevator. Reaching into the narrow space where the door locks into place, he tears out the hydraulics cables. It takes him a few tries, his grip going lax whenever he thinks he’s got it, but eventually his pants are covered in gooey liquid.

“Great.” Aomine stares down at his pants. Well, at least now he can slide on his knees if his legs give out. He keeps the door open with the weight of his body, waiting. With the hydraulics disconnected, once this hatch falls closed, it can’t be opened again. Unless you have a really big crow bar. And some explosives wouldn’t hurt either.

“Come on!” Aomine coughs, adjusting his grip on the door. He tastes blood again, but he wipes it off with the back of his hand. The scratches from earlier are almost completely healed. But instead of new, shiny skin there’s a thick layer of black scab. The vague scent of hot glue and death rises into his nose.

His knees begin to buckle. But then he hears something from the elevator.

“Holy shit,” Aomine snarls when Haizaki busts through the elevator doors, coming to a halt a few feet in front of him. “That took you forever. Did you stop to get a coffee?”

Aomine swears Haizaki smiles at him then. Or perhaps, that’s just the general arrangement of his pointy teeth. Whichever it is, it’s the only warning Aomine gets before Haizaki launches himself at him. Aomine waits until he can practically see down Haizaki’s throat, and lets go of the door.

He falls backwards into the corridor, immediately working on his retreat. The hatch falls shut a second after Haizaki comes roaring through. The good thing about the hydraulics incident is that the floor is slippery as fuck. Haizaki does an awkward, flaily tap dance across the corridor before he hooks his claws into the floor panels. That stops him pretty quick.

Aomine, on the other hand, uses the accidental lubrication to propel himself through the airlock of the engine bay. He doesn’t wait to check what Haizaki is doing, and hits the close button. The airlock shuts with a low hiss. All he can hear is faint screeching and the sound of claws scraping over metal.

Aomine allows himself a breath of relief. His chest feels like he swallowed a red giant and it’s trying to turn into a black hole inside of him. His heart is beating all over the place, he can hear it in his head, feel it in his toes. He’s like a man-shaped beating drum.

He doesn’t know when he flopped down on the floor, but it’s probably better that way. If not for visual confirmation, he wouldn’t have been able to tell if his legs were still there. The coughing subsides eventually, but now he’s reduced to feeling like all his past hangovers have come back to haunt him. Trouble is: there’s nothing to puke up, except his innards and he _really_ doesn’t want to see those.

He drags himself over to the control panel near the door. He hopes the old intercom lines are still operational. It’s hard to focus on the little blips of light. It takes him a couple of tries but eventually he gets static over the speakers. This has got to mean that he’s connected - to somewhere, at least.

“Hey, guys,” Aomine croaks. “I’m in the engine bay.” He pauses to take a few shuddering breaths. “I trapped Bob- Haizaki in the… the corridor outside. Hatches are busted. Bring… blow torch. Or just… I dunno… blow this asshole up.” He falls back on his ass, leaning against the wall, and listens for a reply. He doubts he would have the strength to answer back but at least he would know that he has been heard. There’s nothing but static, though.

Even Haizaki has gone quiet. Maybe he decided to focus his efforts on getting out of that corridor. Aomine strains his ears but it’s hard to hear anything over the thumping of his own heart. He’s getting drowsy, now that the adrenaline isn’t keeping him on his toes anymore. He doesn’t want to fall asleep, afraid he might not wake up. Or worse: wake up as a homicidal lizard.

Aomine always thought he was either going to die in a fight, or with his face buried in a pair of soft, warm boobs - not alone, locked up in the engine bay of a marooned space ship. Well, it figures. He has spent the greater part of his life antagonizing people in the hopes that they will leave him in peace. Eventually, people did. Except for Satsuki.

He would have at least liked to see Satsuki. And Tetsu. If they had listened to him, Tetsu would be here to keep him company. He misses Tetsu’s voice. It would have been nice to go out to the sound of it. Definitely better than the droning of the emergency generator and Haizaki’s aggravated roaring outside. Tetsu could have kept him awake. But even as Aomine thinks that, his eyes fall shut, and there isn’t much else to think about.


	6. Chapter 6

_Aomine-kun?_

Aomine is a bit confused. Everything is dark and he still feels like he’s dying, but he hears Tetsu’s voice. One of these is impossible.

_Aomine-kun._

There it is again. Is he hallucinating now? Aomine grunts, finally figuring out why it’s so damned dark. His eyes are still closed. He blinks them open with some effort. Apparently, he is sprawled out on the floor of the engine bay.

“Tetsu?” Aomine whispers. He can’t seem to manage more than that. He feels like he’s constantly breathing into a bag - and it’s far too small.

_Aomine-kun._

It really is Tetsu. It must be, because why in the hell would he hallucinate only Tetsu’s voice when his mind could be giving him the whole package.

Aomine carefully scrambles into a sitting position. “Tetsu?” He asks again. “What—You—I thought you were gone.”

_I came back for you._

Aomine’s heart makes an excited jump. He should probably be terrified. Tetsu is a _machine_ , based on code, rules and limitations. He shouldn’t be able to _just come back_.

“But—but—” Aomine stutters. “Satsuki switched you off.” He feels a pang of guilt, for not being there.

 _She did,_ Tetsu confirms. _But I came back for you. I want to help you._

Aomine laughs. His lungs protest, causing him to cough up blood and spit, but he can’t stop. Tetsuya, T.E.T.S.U.Y.A., the artificial intelligence decided to come back for his friend, the only person on this ship who is worse at being a friend than a rock. This is like the beginning of a joke, only Aomine reckons, this one will end badly.

_Why are you laughing?_

“Nothing.” Aomine wipes his mouth, spitting blood. “It’s just—I didn’t know… didn’t know you could do that.”

_Neither did I._

“Well, seems like we’re both new to this.” His laughter subsides. He goes quiet when he realizes that everything even worse now. In all likelihood, Tetsu is going to watch him die. The way Aomine sees it, turning into one of these raptor things is as good as dying. He’ll be gone either way. Tetsu is always so eager to learn, but this is something Aomine had hoped he wouldn’t have to.

“Hey, Tetsu?” Aomine wheezes.

_Yes?_

“Have—” he coughs. He smiles grimly, giving his body the proverbial finger by sitting up straighter. “Have the others gotten my message?”

_Yes. They are outside hatch number 2-03, but it seems you have disconnected it from me. I cannot help them._

“Oh.” Aomine smiles proudly. “Have I?”

_If this was your plan, you have succeeded. It will take them a few minutes to get through._

Aomine waves it off. “I’ve got nothing but time,” he lies, bloodied teeth bared in a defiant grin. He pretends not to notice how his hands are shaking. Seems like all he can do is wait and see who’s faster: that freaky genetics shit or his crew mates. At least, Tetsu is here.

He almost drifts off to sleep again, when he hears something. It sounds like someone is slowly scraping away stone. Aomine frowns, trying to detect the source. For a moment, hope arises that it might be the Tōō crew, working on getting into the engine bay. But it’s not coming from the airlock. It’s coming from above him.

“Oh, no.” Aomine breathes, struggling onto hands and feet to get away from the wall. He slumps down in front of one of the containers that house their fuel cells. He stares up at the ventilation grille in horror. “Tetsu?”

_Yes, Aomine-kun?_

“Can you locate Haizaki—” He breaks off, remembering that this thing won’t register as Haizaki. “The lizard thing. Where is it?”

It takes a few moments for Tetsu to answer. _In the ventilation system, level C, engine bay._

“Shit.” Aomine huffs. That damned bastard is trying to get through the foam. And by the sound of it he’s succeeding.

Aomine needs to come up with something, and _fast_. He can’t rely on the others to get here in time. And even if they do, they’ll have to face off with a pretty fucking pissed lizard man first. Aomine takes a deep breath, and drags himself back over to the control panel. There has got to be something he can do from here; press some buttons, break some shit.

His gaze falls upon the emergency fire extinguishing routine. He’s about 99% sure that it’s not supposed to be used as a raptor repellent, but you have to work with what you’ve got. Every section can be sealed off in case of a fire, so that the system can vent the air and thus extinguish the fire. The way Aomine sees it he has already done half the work. The two exits on either side are tightly closed. All he needs to do now is suffocate that motherfucker.

Aomine hits the virtual button with as much ferocity as his mangled body can manage, gargling a triumphant _’Ha!’_ in the process. Only, nothing happens. The controls keep on beeping as if he wasn’t even there. The scratching in the vents continues, unfazed.

“What the hell?” Aomine sucks in a rattling breath and pushes the button again. And again, and again, in case the button didn’t get the hint. But the result remains the same.

_I know what you are trying to do, Aomine-kun._

Aomine sinks to the ground, heaving. Tetsu sounds sad, almost apologetic, but Aomine isn’t feeling it right now. “And what is that, huh?” Aomine says, defiant.

_You want to kill him._

“No shit.” Aomine hacks. “One hundred points, Tetsu. You got me.”

_I cannot let you harm another human being, Aomine-kun._

“Does that thing look human to you?” Aomine scoffs. He would have yelled, if his lungs were cooperating.

_It doesn't matter what someone looks like._

Aomine sighs. Even on the best of days he’s ill-equipped to have philosophical discussions. Right now, he has neither the nerve nor the time to make a rational argument. “Listen, Tetsu.” he winces from the effort of keeping himself upright. “You won’t let me kill him. Fine. But what... what do you think he’ll do once he gets in here? Huh?”

Tetsu doesn't answer. It’s the kind of silence that indicates that Tetsu has found a new parameter of mankind to consider. He does aspire to be more human, after all. Maybe it’s time he learned the hard way.

“Tetsu,” Aomine says when the sound of foam crumbling away under sharp claws gets louder. “You came back for me. That’s the nicest thing anyone’s ever done for me. But if you don’t help me now, you’ll have come back for nothing. _I’ll_ be nothing. Do you understand that? I’ll be gone, Tetsu.”

 _Why would you leave?_ Tetsu seems intrigued, as if he really can’t figure out why Aomine would want to be anywhere but here.

Aomine smiles through the cough that is bubbling up again. He should probably stop talking before he busts a lung. But if he stops now, Haizaki will tear it out of his chest in a few minutes. “Not leaving, Tetsu. I won’t be anywhere.” He racks his brain for analogies that will get the point across. “Look, Satsuki shut you down, right? Remember what that was like?”

_I do._

It sounds oddly sad to Aomine’s ears. But it could always be Aomine’s subconscious willing Tetsu to be more accommodating than his coding allows him to be. Then again, Tetsu did come back, didn’t he? All on his own. For Aomine. That has got to count for _something_.  
“Dying is like that,” Aomine says. “Only, I won’t be able to come back. Not even for you.”

Tetsu is silent for a long time. Aomine almost fears he’s been shut down again, but then Tetsu replies, _I don’t want you to leave._

Aomine smiles. “I don’t want to leave, Tetsu, believe me. But this thing is gonna kill me, Tetsu. Do you understand that? He’ll _make me leave_.”

For a few awful seconds Aomine sits there, spitting blood that is more black than red, and listens to Haizaki digging his way into the engine room. Well, maybe, if Aomine is turning into a lizard they can be friends. Aomine shudders. No, he doesn’t want to be friends with that, lizard or not.

“Tetsu?” Aomine warns, eyeing the small crumbles of foam that have begun to fall all around him. “If you don’t hurry up you can simulate my death.”

_Running simulation._

“Ugh, no, that’s not what I—” Aomine gives up. Maybe this is what it takes for Tetsu to finally get it. He wonders how Tetsu would simulate a world without him. Does he just remove the variable ‘Aomine’ from his equations? Or does he actually recall situations and then erases Aomine’s presence like he was never there? Aomine prefers that option. He doesn’t particularly like being nothing but a variable. He remembers that time they played basketball not too long ago. Does Tetsu picture himself alone on the court now? Just his holographic projection, and no one there to see him. Does it make him feel sad?

Can Tetsu even feel sadness? He can simulate it, no question. He can pick the proper expressions from his vocabulary, and he can react to cues, but can he actually experience it? And then what’s he going to do? What do you do when you’re sad for the first time in your life?

_Simulation complete._

Aomine has a hard time even hearing Tetsu over his heartbeat pounding in his ears. He tries to sit up straight, but fails miserably. “So?” He asks, a grim smile on his lips. “What’s the verdict?”

 _I don’t want you to go. I would—_ There in actual second of hesitation there. It’s such a human thing to do that Aomine mourns the fact that Tetsu isn’t standing before him. _I would miss you._

Aomine laughs, rough and with the taste of blood at the back of his mouth. He reaches out and gently rests his palm against the wall. It’s the best he can do since he’s got no real Tetsu to touch. He hopes Tetsu can somehow feel it. “Then you know what to do, Tetsu.”

_I can’t._

“What?” Aomine yelps. “You just said that—”

_I can, however, offer an alternative. I can’t kill a human being but I can, in this instance, help you to incapacitate one._

“Huh?” Aomine is very confused. He doubts hitting Haizaki on the head will do the trick. Not to mention, that Tetsu isn’t corporeal and Aomine is in no condition to wield a weapon.

 _I can knock him out._

Aomine frowns, “Knock him out?”

_Is this not the term used when forcing a being to fall unconscious?_

“Uh, yeah? But how?”

_An average human being can stand approximately five seconds of oxygen deprivation before falling unconscious. Twenty seconds before irreversible damage will occur. Based on my readings I estimate it will take four to six seconds longer in this case. But the end result will be the same. He will be unconscious._

“So?” Aomine heaves a rattling sigh. “I thought you wanted to help me?”

_I will. But I will do it my way._

Aomine flops back onto the floor, shrugging his shoulders, “You know, whatever. If that’ll make him stop ripping people to pieces, I’m good.”

There is some clicking and beeping on the ship’s part, as if Tetsu was giving him an affirmative nod.

_Releasing air now._

Aomine is a bit too dizzy to comprehend the entire magnitude of what is happening right now but he does recognize that it’s probably going to send Momoi into a frenzy. She’s going to spend _months_ trying to figure out how Tetsu _changed his own programming_ to come back and help a friend. Or, how Tetsu came to have a friend in the first place. A sad smile crosses Aomine’s face when he realizes that he will likely not be there to see her freak out over it.

A low _thud_ outside pulls Aomine out of his thoughts. His eyes have fallen shut again without him even noticing.

_Stabilizing atmosphere._

“Is... Was that...” Aomine clears his throat but all that comes up is blood. He’s shivering all over. But he has to know, so he tries again, “Is he out?”

_Yes. Vitals are normal._

“Wow, I’m so glad.” Aomine rolls his eyes. For reasons entirely his own he can’t really appreciate saving this bastard’s life.

_Hatch number 2-03 has been breached. The others will be here shortly._

Aomine means to say something, but his throat is clogged up with blood and whatever else has no business being in his windpipe. He feels himself sliding lower and lower until he is sprawled out on the ground.

_Aomine-kun, do you hear me?_

_Aomine-kun?_


	7. Chapter 7

Aomine wakes up to the sound of frantic voices. He can’t get his eyes to open, but there’s hair brushing over his face, and something wet is trickling on his cheek. It’s hard to make out words, but the tone isn’t happy. He doesn’t understand why. Apparently, he isn’t dead. Everyone should be freaking ecstatic.

“—don’t know what to do,” he hears Momoi say. She sounds so lost. He wants to reach out, pet her head, and tell her not to be such a downer. She’ll figure it out. She always figures it out.

“We should…med bay.” That’s Imayoshi’s voice.

“—no equipment for this,” Momoi replies. “His organs are shutting down. I… I don’t know how to help him.” Her voice cracks at the end. Aomine feels warm, gentle arms wrap around him. Somebody is stroking his hair—Momoi. She used to do this a lot when they were kids, when she sat him down to talk him out of running away. He wants to tell her that he isn’t going anywhere, but the truth is that he’s not sure about that.

 _I can help him,_ Tetsu says, and Momoi’s arms tighten around Aomine for a moment. She must be startled.

“Tetsuya?” Imayoshi asks, disbelief evident in his voice. Aomine would laugh if he had the strength for it.

_Yes, captain._

“You should not be on,” Imayoshi states.

“It wasn’t me,” Momoi interjects. “I swear.”

“Who switched you back on, Tetsuya?”

_No one._

“B-but that’s impossible!” Poor Momoi. She’s going to be so pissed she wasn’t there to witness Tetsu’s evolution.

_I came back for Aomine-kun. I can save him._

Momoi’s grip goes lax. She’s obviously intrigued. “What? How?”

_There is little time left. Get him to my core. I will do the rest._

“What good will that do?” That’s Nijimura. What is he even doing here?

“It...” Momoi says, contemplative. “It could work.”

“Could _what_ work?” Imayoshi asks. He’s getting impatient.

Aomine suddenly drops out of Momoi’s comfortable embrace and gets manhandled around. He would object, but he can’t even lift his little finger to poke someone’s eye out.

“I’ll explain later,” Momoi sounds rushed, but hopeful. “Quick, get him on the gurney. Move it!”

There is more shoving and pushing, which makes him horribly dizzy. He feels like throwing up, but the feeling passes. And after a while everything else is gone too.

\---

The next time Aomine opens his eyes it’s dark. He feels cheated. He was told there would be light, or a tunnel, or both. He’s a bit fuzzy on the details. But this is definitely not it. This looks a lot more like a ceiling - and a rusty one at that.

There’s a light source somewhere to his right. It’s weak but the shadows begin to grow clearer and he can make out the rectangular shapes of the ceiling panels. He hears some rustling next to him, and realizes he is lying on a bed. Or, what passes for a bed in this place. He turns his head and finds a familiar figure.

“You’re back,” Momoi whispers and launches herself at him. Aomine makes a strangled noise when she tackles him. He waits for the pain to set in, but nothing happens. He feels _fine_ , which is strange, because he distinctly remembers pain. Excruciating, never-ending pain.

When Momoi leans back to examine him her face is framed by light streaming in through a porthole in a door Aomine doesn’t recognize. In fact, he doesn’t recognize anything.

“Where the hell are we?” He wrestles Momoi’s hands down until she ceases her efforts.

She gives him a sad look. “What do you remember?”

Aomine snorts, “You mean before I—I didn’t die, did I?”

“You gave it your best shot.” She sighs. It’s too dark to see her face properly but she doesn’t sound nearly as happy as she should be in Aomine’s opinion.

“What happened?” Aomine sits up on the bed, glancing around the room. There isn’t much to see - a bed, a small table, and one chair, currently occupied by Aomine’s oldest friend. “Why aren’t we on the Tōō?”

For some reason that prompts Momoi to dissolve into a sobbing fit. Aomine is confused. He didn’t realize that this was an offensive question. He does reach out and pet her hair as gently as possible until she takes in a shuddering breath and looks at him.

“He’s gone, Dai-chan,” she says. “Tetsu-kun’s gone.”

“What?” Aomine sputters. “How can he be gone? He’s... No. That can’t be right. He’s a _ship_ , for fuck’s sake. How can a whole ship go missing?”

Aomine can tell by the heaving of Momoi’s shoulders that she’s close to tears again. But she fights them back, plucking a couple of tissues from a dispenser in the wall. “He’s not missing,” she replies eventually. “He’s gone. He… he blew up the ship.”

Aomine gapes at her. No, that’s not possible. If Tetsu blew up the Tōō that would be… suicide. “What are you talking about?” Aomine laughs nervously.

Momoi wipes her face, glancing at him over the tissue. “Do you remember how we brought you to Tetsu-kun’s core?”

“Tetsu’s what?” Aomine asks before he can think. He does remember _something_. He was drifting in and out of consciousness, but he remembers hushed voices, and warmth. And there was Tetsu; not anywhere specific, more like _everywhere_. Once the pain had subsided hundreds of little clouds started tickling him. It was also strangely wet. He doesn’t want to think about that part too much. It was probably just the cooling liquid, but you never know.

“Tetsu-kun’s core. You were dying. I didn’t know—” She breaks off, swallowing down a few sobs, while Aomine awkwardly pats her shoulder in what he hopes to be a comforting gesture. “I didn’t know what to do,” she continues. “I thought you were gonna die.”

“But I didn’t!” Aomine offers her a broad smile. He doesn’t mention the time he thought he was going to die, too.

She grimaces. “I can see that, idiot.” There’s a little smile on her face, though, so Aomine doesn’t take the insult too seriously. “But it’s not because of something I did. Tetsu-kun came back online. He saved you.”

Aomine squints. “How did he do that?”

She shrugs, a little helpless. “Your organs were deteriorating. Your whole body was giving up. I assume it was from that scratch.”

“So, I was going to turn into one of those lizard people after all, huh?”

“Not really.” Momoi brightens up a bit. This is her terrain: explaining science shit to Aomine. “See, that parasite was trying to alter your DNA. If it had worked you would have ended up like Haizaki and Ishida. But your body put up a hell of a fight. Only, it destroyed itself in the process.”

Aomine makes a disgusted face. “And I guess that’s where Tetsu comes in?”

She nods. “He told us to put you in the core chamber. I don’t know what happened in there. We had to close the hatch. I _think_ he used his genetic code to patch up yours.”

“Tetsu can do that?”

“Apparently.” Momoi gives another shrug. She’s sniveling again, but holds her own against the tears.

“So,” Aomine asks carefully. “What happened after that?” He doubts Tetsu made a heroic attempt to save his life and then randomly decided to explode.

“When we went back in to get you, you were fine. But Tetsu-kun was compromised.”

Aomine blinks. “How do you—”

Momoi shoots him an exasperated look. “Do you really want me to go into detail about how foreign DNA can compromise a system based on genetic mutation?”

“No.”

She makes a motion, as if to say _’There you have it’_. “The parasite must have transferred from you to Tetsu-kun. That’s usually not a problem. Tetsu-kun was designed to stave off attacks at a much larger scale than any human could. But I have a pretty good idea how it got in.”

All Aomine can hear is ‘Tetsu-kun’ and ‘attack’, and that makes him incredibly angry. Nobody attacks his friend and gets away with it. There has got to be _someone_ he can punch. “How?” He asks.

“Remember the data from the cargo hold that Tetsu-kun said he ‘forgot’?”

Aomine nods, snarling. “Yeah. I think Haizaki screwed around with that. Asshole.”

Momoi nods in agreement. “But he was no genetic engineer. He accidentally created an opening.” When Aomine merely frowns in confusion, she elaborates, “He cut off Tetsu-kun’s ability to access the data, but that doesn’t mean it was no longer part of Tetsu-kun. It’s like when you get a scratch. You can numb it, but it’s still right there, on your skin. And it can get infected if you’re not careful.”

“You-“ Aomine’s eyes go wide. “Are you saying it’s my fault?”

“No!” Momoi averts her gaze. “Well. A little bit, maybe. If you hadn’t broken open that crate—”

“Oh, please, don’t even start,” Aomine growls. “Still doesn’t explain why we’re not on the Tōō.”

She pulls another half a dozen tissues from the container. By the rate she’s going through them they’re going to be out of tissues by the end of this conversation. 

“Tetsu-kun was infected. The parasite was altering his genetic code. It was _changing him_. In ways no one could foresee. Tetsu-kun couldn’t guarantee our safety anymore. Or anyone’s safety, for that matter.”

“No.” Aomine scoots backwards on the bed, as if to bring space between him and what Momoi is saying. “ _No._ You could have saved him. _We_ could have saved him!”

Momoi shakes her head no. “He gave us enough time to get to the shuttle, and then—” She takes a deep breath, a sad smile on her face. “Then he self-destructed. He didn’t want anyone else to get hurt.”

Aomine sits there and stares at Momoi. He wants to blurt out, _‘And what about me? What about us? We’re hurting right now!’_ But he says nothing. His throat is too tight. He slowly caves in on himself until his face is in his hands and his palms are damp.

Momoi cautiously reaches for his arm, but he jerks away. He would very much like for her to leave now. But what he wants and what’s best for him are not always the same thing. Momoi has always had a way of figuring out which is which, and so she stays. When she speaks up her tone is quiet and gentle. “What Tetsu-kun did, he did out of his own free will. Don’t ask me how that works because I don’t know. I wish I did. But what I do know is, that he did it for you. You made him better.”

“Doesn’t feel that way,” Aomine snorts. Momoi doesn’t reply. She knows when it’s futile to try and comfort him. They sit in silence for a long time then. Aomine thinks back to when he played basketball with Tetsu; the small, boy-ish form that he chose. The idea that Aomine’s never going to see that again is too much, so he chases it away, replaces it with practical matters. Matters that he can deal with. “Did Haizaki make it out?” he asks eventually.

He hears Momoi heave a sigh. “No,” she says. “We didn’t have enough time to get either of them onboard. There wouldn’t have been enough space for the cryo equipment.”

Aomine smiles grimly. “Good.”

Momoi doesn’t respond. It’s all the same to Aomine. He isn’t the most forgiving soul and nothing she can say will make a difference anyway.

“So,” he tries to sound casual. “Where are we?”

Momoi gives him a strange look of dread. “A Kirisaki Daīchi ship.”

Aomine almost topples off the bed. “We’re on a fucking _pirate ship_?”

“They were the only ones who picked up our distress signal,” Momoi says, clearly uncomfortable with the thought. “Imayoshi made some kind of deal with their captain but I guess it’s only a matter of time until they realize it’s bullshit.”

“I’m gonna kill him,” Aomine decides and gets ready to strut out of the room.

Momoi shoves him back down onto the bed. “How about we make sure you’re okay, first.”

“I’m okay! I’m fine!” Aomine pouts.

“I’ll be the judge of that.” Momoi waves her hand and the lights come on with the force of seven suns.

“Whoa!” Aomine squints against the onslaught of light. “Have a little mercy.”

“Sorry.” Momoi chuckles and prompts the system to dim the lights to a bearable level. She frames Aomine’s face with her hands, waiting for him to stop blinking like an owl on drugs. Aomine doesn’t know what she’s hoping to find in his face, but it must be a real shocker judging by her expression.

Aomine pats down his face. “What? Am I terribly deformed?”

“N-no…” she says but it doesn’t convince Aomine. She whirls around and taps the wall. A tiny sink and mirror slide out, and she grabs his arm, beckoning him to take a look.

Aomine indulges her. When he steps in front of the mirror he understands Momoi’s confusion. His right eye is bright blue. “What the hell?” Aomine pulls at his eyelids, as if the explanation was hidden somewhere beneath them.

He’s still busy examining this worrying phenomenon when Momoi pulls at his arm, forcing him to follow her.

“Hey, wait!” Aomine stumbles after her and down the corridor. “Where are we going?”

“I need to check something,” she says, excited. That doesn’t really answer his question, but he’ll tag along. The way he sees it there isn’t much else to do anyway. Except, if he counts finding Imayoshi and maiming him.

They take a flight of stairs and hurry past a couple of perplexed pirates. Momoi shoves him through a door at the end of a long, bleak corridor.

“Uhm.” Aomine takes a look around, while Momoi rushes ahead to start up the system. “This looks like a lab. What do pirates need a lab for?”

Momoi gives him a lopsided grin. “Lots of bad things you can create in a lab.”

“True, I suppose,” Aomine admits.

“Hold out your hand.”

“What for?”

“If I’m right?” Momoi beams. “Something really good.”

Aomine makes a face but lets her swipe down his hand with a tissue. She carries it off to some machine that Aomine has no clue about, and starts pulling up screens to fiddle with settings and parameters.

“Care to explain what’s going on?” Aomine peers over her shoulder. The readings make little sense to him. He does, however, see holograms of a DNA helix pop up all over the place.

“I think…” Momoi says but never elaborates. She plucks a little holographic cube from the screen and lets it hover in her hand for a moment. Her eyes are shining with pure delight. She tosses the cube into the air and it explodes into a myriad of shimmering pieces.

Aomine hesitantly reaches out to touch one of the blobs and it dissolves into even smaller spheres, each alive with numbers and letters, running back and forth, morphing into equations and falling apart again. “What is that?” Aomine stares in awe at the display of color and math, filling the room.

“That,” Momoi smiles. “Is Tetsu-kun.”

“What?” Aomine gives the little cluster of blips hovering near his face a wary look.

She steps up to him and grasps the conglomeration of data strings out of the air, closing her fist around it. When she opens it up again it’s gleaming in a bright blue hue. Aomine recognizes it. His right eye is the same color.

“He wrote himself into your DNA to survive,” she explains, regarding the small fragment in her open palm as if it held the answer to the universe. It probably does, in one way or another.

Aomine flinches. “He’s—He’s _in me_? What?”

“Yes.” Momoi grins. “Do you know what this means?”

“Am I going to develop a second personality?”

She laughs. “No.”

“Then I don’t know what it means.”

She lets the little blue orb float away, gesturing at the shimmering construct around them. “We can rebuild him. We can bring Tetsu-kun back.” She pokes him in the chest, smiling fondly, “You did save him, after all.”

Aomine gapes at the blinking lights, like fireworks trapped in time. It would be incredible if he could have Tetsu back. Aomine doesn’t even need to know the details. He’ll gladly leave those to Momoi. But if Tetsu came back, that would be… the best thing Aomine can imagine. Even better than boobs, and that’s saying something.

Meanwhile, Momoi frowns. “All we need now, though, is a new ship.”

Slowly, a smirk unfurls on Aomine’s lips. “I think I know where to get one.”

\---

Aida Allstar Transport is a young company, but it has been doing well. They weren’t actively looking for a weapons expert, but they got one anyway. Especially, when he comes with a groundbreaking new technology and the genius to implement it.

Eleven months after the Tōō incident, Aomine is standing aboard the Seirin I, scanning cargo for concealed weaponry. Last he’s heard Imayoshi and the rest of the old Tōō crew have set up a salvage operation. Aomine has no idea how, because what little money they got from the insurance company went into paying off their debts to Akashi Enterprises. But Imayoshi has always been resourceful like that. And it’s usually better not to ask.

Nijimura seems to have resigned from the military after this disaster of a mission, and is now, to everyone’s surprise, head of security for said salvage operation. Aomine strongly suspects that Imayoshi and Nijimura are screwing each other because otherwise he can’t really see this working out. But perhaps what Imayoshi has always needed was a grumpy ex-military guy to tell him when he’s being an ass.

Momoi, of course, is with Aomine and Tetsu at all times. She sometimes clashes with Aida Allstar Transport’s head of operations, Aida Riko, but it mostly ends without bloodshed. Whenever they’re not mouthing off at each other they can be quite sensible.

Aomine has his own share of quarrels, namely with someone called Kagami, who is the most obnoxious jerk this side of Rakuzan.

“Don’t do that,” Aomine snarls.

Kagami turns around, blinking. “Do what?”

“Hit the button like that. He doesn’t like that.”

“Who’s ‘he’?”

_Me. And Aomine-kun is right. There is really no need to press the button this hard._

Aomine grins.

“It’s not even a real button!” Kagami complains. “It’s just a holographic image of a damned button!”

_Even more reason not to use it as a punching bag._

“I’ll show you a punching bag!” Kagami bellows and puts his fist through the hologram. He yelps when the hologram morphs into a gigantic dog that attempts to bite his head off.

“Okay! Okay!” Kagami yells, cowering by the wall. “I’m sorry! Okay? I’m really sorry.”

_Apology accepted._

The dog vanishes without a trace. The holographic screen pops up again, like its only purpose is to mock Kagami. Meanwhile, Aomine is laughing tears. “I told you.”

Kagami glances around. Once he deems the situation safe he gets up and glares at Aomine. “Shut up.” He very gingerly taps the button that prompts the cargo bay hatch to close.

They head up to the flight deck. The low hum of the engines powering up follows them almost all the way upstairs—together with Aomine’s barely suppressed laughter.

“I said stop it!” Kagami shoves him. Aomine shoves right back, still chuckling.

“Will you cut that out?” Captain Hyūga shouts.

Kagami points at Aomine. “He started it.”

 _Technically, I started it._ Tetsu materializes next to Aomine, smiling.

“Then cut it out, all three of you,” Hyūga growls. “And sit your asses down. I would like to get out of here before the next ice age.”

_That would be in 3.6 million years. I think we can manage that._

The assembled crew stares at Tetsu, who shrugs. _It’s only a rough estimate._

Hyūga glances at Aomine, and frowns. “I think there’s still a bit too much of your DNA in him.”

Aomine smirks, flopping down in his seat. “Don’t think so. He’s always been like that.” He pats his thighs, winking at Tetsu. “Wanna sit in my lap?”

“You do realize he’s just a hologram, don’t you?” Hyūga sighs.

“Nah.” Aomine smiles. “He’s much more than that.”

Hyūga gives up. He shakes his head in exasperation and returns his attention to his duties as the captain.

 _Ready for launch, captain,_ Tetsu informs them before sitting down in Aomine’s lap. Of course, he doesn’t _actually_ sit down. But if Aomine focuses really hard on Tetsu, he can pretend that he feels a little shift in the air from the movement.

“Then let’s go,” Hyūga orders. The Seirin I gently lifts off the ground, leaving the small commercial town behind. It pierces through the cloud cover and then it’s nothing but stars up ahead.

Aomine, however, finds Tetsu and his content little smile much more interesting. Maybe Momoi was right. Tetsu _is_ better now. And maybe Aomine is a little bit better, too.

\- - - End Transmission - - -


End file.
